Lost & Found
by Smiley612
Summary: Before Fabian Rutter was famous, he met Nina Martin at a small coffee shop. One thing led to another, and they had a one-night stand, but then didn't see each other again for 3 years. When Fabian receives a photograph of his daughter, he meets up with Nina once again, and they must rekindle their relationship while battling the difficulties of fame. AU. Rated T for teen pregnancy.
1. The Photograph

**A/N - Wow, my first AU Anubis fic! I've never written one of them before, so I'm definitely excited to write this one. If you're wondering, I originally had this idea as a 1D fanfic, but because I don't like writing about real people, I changed it around a bit and now it's an Anubis fic! Some notes that might be useful to know: Flashbacks will be in italics, and will be _centered_, so you can pick it out easily.  
I do hope you enjoy this chapter, as much as I enjoyed writing it.  
Have a sparkling day!~*  
~Julianna**

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**Fabian  
Chapter 1: "The Photograph"**  
**Three years after the one-night stand - August 7th, 2012  
**

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Mick, Jerome, and I were watching television programs. I'd only known the two for a year and a half, but we'd reached the point in our relationship when one could come into the others house without knocking and the other wouldn't care.

Mick had done exactly that: he'd walked in without knocking only ten minutes ago, and despite my protests, turned off the channel I was watching and turned it to the sports channel to watch his usual football game.

"Ah, Mick, can't you watch it at someone's else house?" I complained as I threw my book down on the leather couch. He flashed me grin before grabbing the remote from underneath the table and sitting down next to Jerome and I on the couch.

"Nah - Liz is hogging the television at my place, so I figured I'd just come here," Mick laughed as he sat forward, watching the sports game more intently. I rolled my eyes; Liz was Mick's younger sister. I knew that Mick could obliterate the scrawny teenage girl in a heartbeat, but he loved her too much to do that.

I rolled my eyes, leaning back into the couch. Jerome was sitting to my left, typing something into his phone. He had an old flip phone - which he both liked and disliked. He complained every five minutes that his phone was stupid, but then the next second he was closing the flip phone dramatically and was bragging that he owned a flip phone.

Jerome was hard to figure out sometimes, so normally I just left him to his business. But now he turned to me and said, "You should feel honored. Mick loves food, and his house probably stores enough food for a clan of bears to feast on and still feel hungry."

I chuckled, because I knew that was true. Mick may be a pain sometimes, but he was a good guy.

This was how I spent most of my weekends when I was off - hanging out with Mick and Jerome - and sometimes Alfie. Jerome brought his best friend along from time to time, but Mick and I both agreed he was annoying, so we didn't see Alfie a lot nowadays.

If I wasn't off, I'd probably be with my team - my manager, my band, my stylists, et cetera. I loved what I did, but the time it took for them to prepare me, to beautify me, was much too long and time consuming. My manager picked a good spot for my house, far away from any obsessing fangirls or paparazzi to find me. It was a journey to walk all the way up the hill, but it was better than being swarmed by girls and old men with cameras.

My name is Fabian Rutter. My manager wanted me to change my name, to a pen name, but I declined. I wanted my fans (if I ever got fans) to know who I really was, so I kept my real name. My name is Fabian Rutter, and I'm a famous singer.

Well, I'm not as famous as say, Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley. But according to the magazine I had appeared in a while ago, 'I was a rising star with promising talent'. I had a couple of fans that I'd see now and then, and the small arenas I played in to practice usually filled up with girls.

After all, I had been in the music industry for two and a half years. People knew my voice. They knew of Fabian Rutter, that shy artist that people loved (according to Liz, Mick's thirteen-year-old sister), but "would never be as good as One Direction". Liz thinks she has some sort of advantage about living in Liverpool, that she has a "greater chance" of meeting the boy band and marrying them, when in reality she has about as much chance as a dead slug.

I had a lot of fans in the Liverpool area. I haven't toured around the world like other artists have, but when I perform a small concert for charity or such, the arenas fill up with fans. Long story short, I'm a popular artist.

This was what I wanted all along. I'd loved music since I was small, and now I was living my dream by being a popular artist. I never wanted to admit the one thing I didn't like - the "Confidence Lessons" that my manager gave me. Two years ago, when I announced I wanted a record deal, I wasn't confident at all. The record producer loved my voice and my talent, so he gave me a deal - he'd accept me to his record if he gave me personal "Confidence Lessons".

I was supposed to have a "Confidence Lesson" today, but I cancelled because Jerome called to say he was coming over. I would never admit this in public or in front of my friends, but the Confidence Lessons . . . well, they were working. I was gaining more confidence, and I wasn't afraid of performing in front of a crowd anymore.

As Jerome would say, "You don't pee your pants at the sight of a crowd anymore!"

It was getting there. I had fans. I had a Twitter with plenty of followers. People liked my singing voice. That was all I wanted. All I really wanted was for one stranger to hear my voice and like it, because then I'd know that I was doing well.

Mick was talking to me about the sport we were watching when we heard a loud bang outside the front door. Mick bolted up from his seat on the couch and moved into a defensive position, saying, "It could an intruder. Or the paparazzi. Or a crazed fangirl. Don't worry, mate, I'll fight them off."

He started to slowly walk towards the door. I groaned and leaned back against the couch. "Mick, stop being ridiculous. It's the mailman."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because he always comes at three p.m," I gestured to the clock on the wall, "and guess what time it is? Three p.m."

Mick rolled his eyes, realizing I was right, and sat back down on the black leather couch. "Well, I'm not getting the mail."

I didn't feel like lifting my lazy butt off of the couch and walking down the road to the mailbox, so I turned to Jerome, who was muttering under his breath about how dumb his phone was yet again. "Jerome, could you be kind for two minutes and please get the mail? Please?"

He looked up from his phone and cocked an eyebrow. He didn't speak a word, but I knew exactly what he was thinking. _You're asking me to be NICE? Not gonna happen, buddy._

"Please? As an early birthday present?" I pleaded, putting on my best pouty face that I still used to the day on my older sister. Mick and I both had sisters - but I was the unlucky one out of us because I didn't just have a sister - I had four sisters. Two older, two younger. It was a pain being the only boy in the family, and not to mention that I was the _middle child._

My birthday was in exactly two weeks, on August 21, so technically Jerome could give me an early birthday present, so he groaned and pushed himself off of the couch. "Just this one time, Stutter Rutter," he said, using the nickname he had given me when we were fifteen. He still used it to the day, and we were both nineteen now.

I flashed Jerome a grin as he passed and watched him as he slammed the door shut on his way out. I moved closer to Mick on the couch, who was leaning forward in his seat, watching the game. I tried to follow the game along with him, but the players were moving too fast for my glasses-needing eyes, so I picked my book back off the seat of the couch and started to read the page again.

It was quite a walk to reach the mailbox from my house that I shared with my mom, dad, and four sisters, so I wasn't surprised when I finished a whole two chapters before Jerome came back walking through the door. He had to walk all the way down the hill, and back up again, so it was evident why there were beads of sweat on his forehead.

Jerome trudged over to the kitchen, and threw all of the letters down on the wooden table with a smack. He returned to the common room where Mick and I were sitting, but to my surprise he tossed a single envelope on my lap.

"It's addressed to you," he stated. My eyes widened in suspicion. My manager told me that if I ever got fanmail, it would be sent to his house, as he wrote his address on the "send-fanmail" link on the website. I didn't get much - like I said, I was no Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson - but some considerate fan would write a letter now and then saying how much they liked me.

I wasn't in any clubs. I didn't really do any outgoing activities, except go camping every other month with my family that they force me to go on. I wasn't an "outgoing" person. Why would I get mail?

Jerome was muttering to himself again, and Mick was too caught up in the sport game to ask, so I ripped open the envelope and took out the single item that was inside of it.

It was a photograph of a young girl that couldn't have been more than two years old. Her light-brown hair cropped at her neck, and her grin stretched from ear to ear. Jerome leaned over from his spot on the couch and asked, "Who's that?"

"No idea," I answered. I was analyzing every detail of the photo - wondering who the girl was, who sent it, and why the sent me a photograph of a toddler. I looked it over carefully, trying to find the slightest hint of who she was; her curly dirty-blonde hair and her thin bangs that lay on her forehead, her small, crooked baby teeth, her tiny little nose. "Why would someone send me a photograph of a toddler?" I wondered, voicing my thoughts. I held out the photo for Mick to see.

"I don't know, Fabian," Mick told me, but he was looking over the photo as well. He took it from my hands so her get a closer look. "Mate . . ." he began, "She has your eyes."

"What are you talking about?" I ripped the photo from his hands to see for myself, and you could bet your bottom dollar that the toddler in the photograph certainly _did_ have my eye color - it was the same blue - it wasn't the same color as the ocean or the sky, but like a cement-road blue, sort of. Mick was right - me and the toddler had the same eye color.

"Do you think you're related somehow?" Mick asked me.

"No way," I answered immediately. "I would know. Mum would tell me if I had a new cousin or something probably like two minutes after they were born," I stated. I wassn't lying - my mum loved kids, which doesn't surprise me; she did have five of them.

"No, I mean . . . um . . ." Mick stuttered, rubbing the back of his head, evidently nervous. I motioned for him to go on, and he continued, carefully picking out his words. "What I mean is . . . do you think she's . . . your daughter?"

"No. Absolutely not," I replied, almost too quickly. How could he think the child on the photograph could be my daughter? Sure, we had the same eye color, but blue was a popular color. After all, I never had sex with anybody . . . anybody but . . .

_I was typing the fourth line of the second verse when someone sat across from me. I didn't look up; people sat at others tables all the time when there was no other place to sit. I saw her take a sip from the coffee she had ordered from the corner of my eye before she said, "Hi."_

_I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or not, but no one else talked and the girl sitting across from me didn't say anything either, so I figured she was talking to me. I reluctantly looked up from my laptop screen and replied, "Hi."_

_The first thing I noticed when I saw her was her smile. Her smile was real. There was nothing fake to it; it wasn't forced, it wasn't obnoxious or ridiculous. Her smile was genuine, and her expression was full of curiosity. She looked like she liked mysteries and challenges._

I shook the memory from my head, and focused back on the photograph in my hands. There was no way this girl could be my daughter.

"Her name is Emma," Jerome deadpanned, bringing me back to reality.

I turned my attention to him. "And you know this, how . . .?"

He pointed to the bottom of the picture, where a word was written in perfect calligraphy. Sure enough, it read _Emma. _"Okay . . . so her name is most likely Emma. That doesn't help us know who she is. All we know is that she looks about two years old. That's it."

"Is there anything on the back?" Jerome inquired, taking the picture from me and flipping it over. I watched him read the words that were written on the back, and when he processed the sentence, his eyes widened. "Fabian . . . I think you should see this."

"What do you mean?" I hissed, my heart thumping. The possibility was becoming greater and greater, and I couldn't bear it if I saw her name on the back of the photograph -

"Oh, shit," I muttered to myself when I saw the name printed on the back. There was only one sentence written, and it said: _I thought you should know that you have a daughter. Signed, Nina._

Nina.

The girl I had a one-night stand with three years ago.

"Fabian . . . are you okay?" Mick asked carefully, but I wasn't listening. There was only one thought running through my mind, echoing in my thoughts over and over. Eventually, I gained the right to speak again.

"Jerome . . . Mick . . . this is my child. This is my daughter. I am this girl's father. _I'M A DAD."_


	2. The Search

**A/N - Ah, thanks to everyone who reviewed for the wonderful comments. Don't worry; this story will actually be a long one; it's going to have 27 chapters! If it all plays out and I update every week, this story will officially end on SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2013.  
Every update will be on Fridays: the second chapter (This one) is being published on March 8th, and the third chapter will be published on Wednesday, March 15th. You getting my gist?  
I do hope you enjoy this chapter, because I stayed up till the wee hours of the night working on it. Have a sparkling day!~*  
~Julianna  
**

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**Fabian  
Chapter 2: "The Search"**

It was not real. It couldn't have been real. I must have been dreaming it, because it couldn't have been real.

It was one day. One simple day. I knew Nina for less than twenty-four hours. We met in a coffee shop, we went to my apartment, and we had sex. It was one time. I couldn't have gotten her pregnant. Not after one time . . .

Could I? It's been three years since I last saw her. I barely remember what she looks like. After we slept together, I woke up to find she was gone. Her clothes, her bag, and herself had gone, without as much as a note. I hadn't seen her since.

She must have woken up, only to realize that she had just had sex with a man she had just met. She had most likely run out of my small apartment, to wherever she lives, found a pregnancy test and found out that she indeed was pregnant.

I got a fifteen-year-old pregnant. I had the nerve to get a fifteen-year-old pregnant, ultimately ruining the rest of her teenage life. She gave birth at sixteen, raised a baby at sixteen, all without me; without a father to support her and her child.

But the thing that hurt me the most wasn't that I wasn't there for the first two years of my daughter's life. It wasn't that I wasn't there to see the birth of my daughter, help her pick out the name, or feed her in her high chair.

It was that even though I knew Nina's name, she didn't know mine. When we met, I didn't even have the decency to tell her my name. Through the nine months of her pregnancy, all she knew was that she met a mysterious boy at a coffee shop, fell in love with him, had sex with him, but never asked his name. She didn't know my name, and therefore she couldn't find me.

She must've known who I was now, at least. She sent me the photograph. So while I was having the time of my life, singing concerts, hanging out with my friends, and talking with interviewers, she was watching me from the sidelines. Watching me live without the knowledge that I was a father, that I had a child. That I didn't care that I screwed a girl who was only fifteen and never tried to find her.

I didn't know anything about her. All she told me was that she was fifteen, she was from America, and her name was Nina. She didn't even tell me her last name. She didn't even write it on the photograph she sent me of her daughter - wait - our daughter. The girl in the photograph wasn't just her child.

It was my child as well. At only eighteen-years-old, I was a father. I wasn't even nineteen yet (though I'd turn nineteen in exactly two weeks), and I had a child.

It was my fault. I asked Nina if she wanted to follow me to my apartment, and she did. We talked for a little while, but I was the one who started to unhook her bra strap. She wasn't the one taking my clothes off, yet she didn't try to stop me.

God, I was an ass.

"Mate, are you okay?" Jerome asked, slightly concerned. He was the one who brought me back to reality. "Do you realize what you did?"

I simply nodded. "Yeah. I screwed up. I fucked a fifteen-year-old girl that didn't even know my name, and now she sent me a picture of my daughter." I turned to Mick, a pleading look crossing my face. "Mick, what do I do? I don't know what to do. I'm only eighteen. I have no idea what to do."

"Fabian, it's okay," he assured me, but I didn't believe him. Mick continued, "What was her name?"

"Nina. Her name was Nina," I remembered. That was the only thing I remembered . . . that her name was Nina.

_"You're very interested in me and my musical career, aren't you?" I was the one to ask the question this time._

_"I think you're very interesting, that's why," she explained herself. Her green eyes shone with happiness, and I knew she was getting somewhere with me. I wasn't trying to slink away or pretend she didn't exist. I was acknowledging her, and she wanted to know more about me. "But I don't know much about you."_

_"Well, I don't know anything about _you _yet," I said, keeping my eyes on her face, her extremely interesting face. "Care to tell me more about you?"_

_She flashed me a grin before she said, "My name is Nina. I'm fifteen years old, and I'm from America."_

"What's her last name?" Jerome asked, keeping his eyes on the photograph in my hands with Nina's handwriting.

"I don't know," I admitted. "She never told me. She just said her name was Nina." I buried my face in my hands, trying to keep myself together. "God, I really fucked up, didn't I?" I muttered through my fingers.

"Yeah, mate, you did," Mick deadpanned. I wasn't sure if it was his attempt at making me feel better, but it didn't help much. I didn't lift my head out from my hands, but Mick continued speaking. "Well, my observation is that Nina sent you the photograph to inform you that you a daughter, named Emma. She didn't write her last name, which confuses me: why would she send you a photograph of your daughter just so you _can't_ find her?"

"Well, if there's one thing I remember about her, it's that she was a mystery," I said, finally lifting my head to the florescent lights of my house.

"What do you remember about her?" Jerome inquired.

"Not much," I began. "It was three years ago, after all. I remember that her name was Nina, she had an American accent, and that she was fifteen years old. She had green eyes and light-brown hair. She just moved to Liverpool and was attending a school that began with a _C_." I listed the things I remembered, which wasn't a lot.

"So, Fabian, it's up to you," Jerome told me. "It's a mystery to us if Nina wants you to find her or not, but you have to make the decision here, as your a new father. Do you want to find the girl you met three years ago, and meet your two-year-old daughter, or do you want to continue your life as a popular music artist, never to give another thought to Nina or Emma again?"

"I want to find her," I answered immediately. "I need to see her again. I want to meet my daughter."

"Alright, then," Mick smiled. "Now we go on a search to look for Nina Blank."

**xXx**

I grabbed my computer from the other room, and came back into the common room to sit between Jerome and Mick as I was before. My mum, dad, and four sisters were all out today, so we had the house to ourselves, and no one in my family would know that I was a father . . . yet.

"'Kay, I made a list of the things you remembered about Nina Blank," Mick stated, shoving the notepad in front of my face. I nodded, typing my password into the entry box, and clicking onto the internet.

"Guys, England is huge," I spoke as I was waiting for the internet to load. "And besides, when I met Nina, she said she was from America. After she found out she was pregnant, she could have gone back to America to live with her parents or something. She might not be in Liverpool at all."

"But you said that she was attending a school in Liverpool that began with a _C_," Mick added innocently. "Hopefully she wanted to finish her studies before going back home to America?" He grabbed the computer from my lap and started typing in a website address. He flashed me a grin before saying, "Wikipedia is the answer to everything."

"Oh, God, Mick, Wikipedia is so unreliable," Jerome muttered, playing with his flip-phone again. Mick didn't even care to cast him a quick glare, as he was typing something in the "search" box. When I looked over, I saw he was typing, "_schools in liverpool_".

"You're not gonna find her, Mick," I stated simply, even though I was silently hoping we might be able to find her. That I might be able to see _that girl_ again, that I might be able to meet my child. I was holding on to a thin strip of hope, but it was all I had. "Nina's a common name. We might be looking through pages upon pages of 'Nina's' and might never find her."

"You remember what she looks like, don't you?" Mick asked, and I nodded. "Well, if the student profiles have pictures, it should be easy to find her. How long had she been in Liverpool when you met her?"

"A couple of months," I remembered what she had said to me that day.

_"It's nice to meet you, Nina. Why are you in Liverpool if you're from America?"_

_"My grandmother was offered a job that she couldn't refuse," Nina said. Her pale eyes stayed bright with anticipation as she waited for more to say. She continued, "So I moved from California to Britain. I've only been here for a few months. I like it much more than California, for the record."_

_I chuckled. Nina most certainly wasn't the funniest being, but I liked her sense of humor. I liked a lot about the girl I had just met. "Britain most certainly is a wonderful place. Where are you going to school?" She had said she was fifteen, which means she was one year younger than me. She should be in school._

_"I don't even know," she admitted, the sides of her eyes crinkling up as she smiled. I thought it was adorable, the little wrinkles by her eyes. Her smile was so beautiful, it made me melt. "The school name isn't on the actual school. It starts with a C, though. That's all I know. What about you? Where do you go to school?"_

"So she had probably just started school," Mick reasoned. He sighed with disappointment. "I can't believe you had the balls to get a poor fifteen-year-old girl pregnant."

I looked down in shame. "I know," I mumbled, almost to myself. "That's what I've been telling myself since I saw Nina's name on the back of the card. I'm such an ass."

"Don't beat yourself up, mate," Jerome said with fake sympathy. "Everyone makes mistakes when they're sixteen."

"Hahaha," I laughed without humor, narrowing my eyes into slits. I turned my attention back on Mick, who was looking through the "c" section of the schools in Liverpool.

"Fabian, did she look religious?" Mick asked me as he scrolled through the list of schools.

"I don't know," I replied. "How was I supposed to know? I guess not. I mean, she wasn't wearing the cross of Jesus around her neck or wearing anything that supplied she was Jewish, or any other religious item, if that's what you mean. Why?"

"Because if you'd just answer my question, I could eliminate one school from the list of four "c" schools that I have here, and that would make my search a lot easier."

I grabbed the laptop from Mick's hands and placed it back on my legs. The list of the four "c" schools on the list in Wikipedia read 1) _Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School, 2) Childwall Academy, 3) Callina Academy, and 4) Croxteth Community Comprehensive School._

"You think she was Catholic?" Mick asked again, and I shrugged. I clicked on the first link that read _Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School_. It did read _high school_, so it was a possibility that Nina attended school here.

I was scanning the page for the student list when Jerome interrupted me. "Mate?" he began. "When you were having sex, did Nina have a vagina, or a penis?"

"I'm pretty sure she had a vagina . . . why?" I asked, a hint of amusement coming from my voice based on Jerome's question.

"Because it says here that it's for boys, and because you said that Nina was a girl, I'm pretty sure she doesn't attend the school."

"Oh," I said quickly, clicking the _back_ button. I clicked the next link: Childwall Academy, but it turned out to be a secondary school, so I clicked out of that link too. The page for _Croxteth Community Comprehensive School _had nothing in it, so the only link left was_ Callina Academy._

"I guess she goes here," I supplied as I clicked on the link. I hoped that the page wasn't deleted just as the other one was, and to my luck, it wasn't.

I scanned through the page, knowing Callina School was the one she must attend. I was scanning through the page, and I read aloud to Jerome and Mick, "It's an English Comprehensive School. It's located in Picton, which is near the middle of Liverpool. We're in Woolton right now, so it shouldn't be that far of a drive. Now, to find her student profile."

Mick, Jerome and I scrolled down to the N's, and we found that there were nine Nina's attending Callina Academy. And the Nina that I met three years ago, my Nina, was on that list. We clicked through the names, and when I continued saying "no" to each of them when I saw their picture, I didn't know what I was expecting when I clicked the name "Nina Martin".

While the page loaded, I scrolled down the slightest bit to find the picture of the face. The face that had matured since I last saw it three years ago. But the same features were there: the same dirty-blond hair, the pale-green eyes, the same exuberant smile that I had fallen in love with. It was her. It was really her.

Because I didn't click out of the page, Mick mumbled quietly, "I guess this our Nina. Okay, so we know her last name is Martin, she attends Callina Academy, and probably lives somewhere in the Picton area. This shouldn't be so hard. We have the rest of today and tomorrow. Okay . . . how do you knock on Nina's door and convince her that you're not there to hurt her?"

I shrugged, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the computer screen. I was looking at the picture of Nina Blank - but she wasn't Nina Blank anymore. She was Nina Martin, the same girl I met three years ago, still alive and well, still living with our daughter. I stared at the description, to find she was would attend her last year of high school next year in September, as it was still August. It said she was seventeen, and her birthday was July 7th.

So when we met, she had only been fifteen for a couple of months. She had turned seventeen exactly one month ago, and she was supporting a two-year-old daughter.

I was thinking about Mick's question when Alfie came through the door. I felt like groaning, because Jerome knew both Mick and I weren't fans of Alfie, but Jerome walked over to him and said, his words aimed at me, "Yes, Alfonzo . . . how on Earth are we ever going to come into the house of the mother of Fabian's child without her knowing that it's Fabian? Do you have a plan, dear friend?"

Alfie's eyes widened. "Fabian's a dad? Whoa, dude. Too much information for me. But, yes, Jerome -" he turned to smile at his best friend, "I have a plan."

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**A/N - Second chapter DONE. The next chapter will consist of Fabian reuniting with Nina - the long awaited Fabina moments season 3 so terribly lacks of. :(  
Concering Callina Academy: I made it up. It is completely fake. Though, the other schools mentioned and the towns in Liverpool - I did not make those up. The school Nina attends is fake.  
Thank you for all the wonderful comments, and see you through the screen next week!  
~Julianna**


	3. The Reunion

**A/N - Whoa, long chapter coming your way. Okay, I'm going to keep the Author's Note as short as possible. ^u^ Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! They keep me going :) All right, on to the story. I guess that's what you're here for. I do hope you enjoy the chapter! Happy reading!  
Have a sparkling day!~*  
~Julianna**

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**Fabian  
Chapter 3: "The Reunion"**

"I am _not_ going through with this plan."

Alfie rolled his eyes, from where he was sitting in front of me. "Well, it's the only thing I've got. Unless _you_ have a better idea."

"I could come up with twenty better ideas than this," Jerome stated as he was pulling with his costume.

Alfie rolled his eyes. "Come _on_, how else would you walk into the mother of your child's house, without her knowing that it's you?"

"Lots of ways," I replied sarcastically. "Besides, she sent me the photograph. She obviously wants to meet up with me again."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, mate," Mick began. "I mean, sure - she sent you the photograph, but she didn't put her address or even her full name. We had to find that out through the wondrous powers of the internet. She most likely doesn't want to be found."

I nodded, knowing that Mick's statement was true. "I know," I reasoned, "But I want to see her again. I need to meet my daughter . . . Emma," I said, playing the name of my daughter on my lips. It was so odd; at only eighteen, I was a father. I wasn't ready to be a father. I was having a good time singing and hanging out with my friends; I wasn't ready to have a daughter.

"It's your responsibility," Jerome told me, as if he could read my mind. "You were the one who got her pregnant. It's your fault just as much as it is hers. Admit to what you did and fix it."

"That's what I'm trying to do," I replied impatiently. "I want to see Nina again, and Emma for the first time. I missed the first two years of my daughter's life. Christ, I don't even know when her birthday is!"

"I know, Fabian," Mick told me, "but you can't just walk up to Nina's door, sing a song, and expect everything to be okay. You two are going to have to work together to maintain a healthy relationship. You have to work through the hard times and be there for each other. Jesus Christ, Fabian, you have to support her because you freaking got a _fifteen-year-old pregnant_!"

I nodded, admitting to my mistake. Alfie asked, from the drivers seat, "Mate, how did you meet this Nina girl? What happened?"

"That's none of your business," I muttered bitterly, but Jerome scoffed from where he was sitting next to Alfie.

"I can't believe _Fabian_ had sex when he was sixteen," he ranted. "We're both nineteen now - well, Fabian will be nineteen in two weeks - but I've been nineteen for two months now and I haven't even had my first kiss yet."

Mick burst out laughing, and didn't even try to cover it. Jerome rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything else, so I assumed it was true. Jerome was nineteen and he hadn't even kissed a girl yet. In the few years I had known him, he had a couple of girlfriends, but I supposed he never kissed any of them as he never tried to persuade us he was kidding.

"I can't believe Jerome's never kissed anybody!" Mick rejoiced. "Oh, that's priceless. Fabian, can you believe that? Jerome's never kissed a girl! And you had _sex_!"

I nodded again, but didn't say anything after that. I stared outside at the passing trees and scenery from the back seat of Alfie's silver convertible. After he announced that he had a plan, he ushered us all inside his "baby" (a.k.a, his car) and didn't tell us where he was taking us.

First, he took us to his house, and forced us to put on the costumes he gave us. His plan wasn't all that bad - if it weren't for the costumes. Alfie forced us to put on freaking _delivery men_ costumes. The suits were obnoxious, unflattering, and just plain unprofessional. Alfie's plan was to go knocking on Nina's door in the delivery men costumes, saying that she had won a free meal from the 'restaurant we worked at', so she or her parents would open the door and not see Fabian Rutter, the famous singer.

We were on the highway headed to Picton from Woolton. It wasn't that far - it shouldn't be more than twenty minutes to get from where I live to there. Unfortunately, the student profiles revealed a little too much, which wouldn't be good for a sociopath maniac because he could track all the addresses down - but the student's addresses were printed on the profile page, and so was Nina's.

We were headed straight for her house when Alfie suddenly made a left turn onto an exit.

"Alfie, where are you going?" Mick questioned. "Picton is that way." he pointed in the direction the highway was headed.

"I know!" Alfie exclaimed, still driving into the exit. "I'm going to Amber's house."

There was only one thing Mick and Jerome agreed with: Amber was the annoying one. Mick and I both agreed that she might be more annoying than Alfie himself, which she was - but I liked Amber. She was a good person, even though she liked to fangirl over David Beckham. She came over from time to time - more than Alfie, at least - and she helped me with my schedule and such. I called her my "mini-manager" because I didn't like my real manager that I had.

Amber was Alfie's on-and-off boyfriend. She must break up with him and then get back together every other month. I supposed that August was an "on" month, because he was headed there right now.

"We are _not_ picking Amber up," Jerome growled from the passenger seat. "Come on. It's four p.m. Nina might be out and about soon. If we're not quick enough, Nina might not be home and getting into these ridiculous costumes were useless. Just turn around, keep driving down the highway, and let's go to Nina's house so Fabian can have a panic attack when he sees his daughter for the first time."

"Haha," I laughed without humor. "I won't have a panic attack. I've been preparing myself for this ever since we found Nina's profile on the school website."

As Alfie realized his mistake, courtesy of Jerome, we drove down the highway to Nina's house. I stared out of the car most of the trip, thinking about what I would say after three years. What I would say to Nina's parents when they figure out that I was the person who got her pregnant. Nina obviously knew who I was - she sent me the photograph. But did the parents know?

I was musing about all this when Alfie parked the car in front of a house. With our delivery suits on, we stepped out of Alfie's convertible and I admired Nina's house.

It was a two-story Colonial with creme, diagonal shingles. Two windows on the bottom floor, on either side of the white door, and two windows on the upper floor. The roof was a black trapezoid. There were two cars parked in the driveway.

"Here we are," I muttered, almost to myself. "The household in which the mother of my daughter lives. We're actually here and we're going to meet her. Oh my god, this is not what I expected," I said as I followed Mick, Jerome, and Alfie up the stone steps to Nina's white door.

None of us knocked. "Who's gonna knock?" Mick asked quietly, and like the secondary school kids we were, we played a game of "Not-It". Alfie was the one who said it last.

"Aw," he complained, but raised his fist and rapped on the door. The first time, his fist barely grazed it. He turned to me, making a deal, and said, "If I knock on the door louder, do I get to play with Emma too?"

I titled my head like a confused dog, but realizing I didn't have to knock on Nina's door, I nodded, saying that he could. His fist pounded on the door, and we waited a few seconds before an elderly woman with grey hair opened the door.

My mind wasn't processing what I was seeing. I was expecting a young woman or a man, not an older woman. What made me think that Nina would have parents? I remembered . . .

_"My grandmother was offered a job that she couldn't refuse," Nina said._

So Nina had lived with her grandmother since I met her. Where were her parents? In America? Dead?

"Who are you four lovely lads?" The older woman said, her bright green eyes sparkling. Her eyes were so much like I remembered Nina's to be; it was almost scary in comparison.

I cleared my throat, remembering Alfie's dialogue that he made us practice when we first left his house. "Um, we're the delivery people from Joe's Restaurant. We're here to tell you that you won a free meal - Oh god, Alfie, I'm sorry, I can't do this." I said, taking my hat off and zipping the costume off, as it was covering my regular blue t-shirt and jeans that I usually wore on a Saturday afternoon.

"Yeah," Jerome and Mick agreed, ripping off their costumes at once. Alfie groaned, but took off his costume too.

"Who are you, really?" The old woman asked innocently.

"He's a friend of Nina's," Mick covered for me, so I didn't have to say anything. We were all out of our costumes by now. "Is Nina here?"

"Yes, I think so," The old woman, obviously Nina's grandmother said. "NINA?" She called up the stairs.

"YEAH, GRAN?" Another voice called down. Nina's voice. The voice that I had last heard three years ago.

"THERE'S SOMEONE HERE TO SEE YOU!" As I heard footsteps upstairs, Nina's Gran asked, "Now, what's your name?" she asked, her gaze pointed at me.

"Uh . . . F-Fabian," I stuttered. Jerome wasn't kidding around when he called me Stutter Rutter all that time ago.

Her grandmother nodded, and when a figure came down the stairs, my heart almost stopped.

It was Nina.

It was the same Nina that I had three years ago in the coffee shop. The same Nina that sat down next to me, and started up a conversation, despite my protests. She continually asked me questions, until I started asking about her as well. For once in my life, somebody was interested in me, and it was a stranger I had just met. A stranger that didn't even know my name when she had a one-night stand with me, but didn't care because she liked him that much.

It was Nina, and no one else. She had the same wavy dirty-blonde hair. I couldn't see her eye color from where I was standing, but I would bet it would still be the same pale-green with the same speck of anticipation and excitement. It was her. It was really Nina.

I looked up at her, my charcoal-blue eyes meeting her pale-green ones. She didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. Instead of running down and hugging me, Nina shook her head and bolted back up the stairs.

_Well, that was unexpected_. Mick leaned over and whispered in my hear, "I told you she didn't want to be found."

I waved him off, but once I saw that Nina's gran was closing the door, I stopped the motion with my hand.

"I'm sorry, Fabian," Nina's Gran apologized, "but Nina obviously doesn't want to see you, and based on her actions, I won't let her. I'm sorry; you seem like a great guy, but you'll have to go."

She pushed the door closed, but I stopped it again. "_Wait_," I insisted. "_Please_. You have to let me come in."

"Fabian, I -"

"_Please_. I . . . I haven't seen Nina in three years. And . . . well . . . I'm . . ." I paused. ". . . I just found out that I'm the father of Nina's child."

The old woman's eyes widened. She didn't slam the door like I expected her too. I could tell that she was analyzing me: my eye color, my hair color, my facial features. Instead of slamming the door shut,, she whispered, "You're Emma's dad?"

**xXx**

After some explaining, Nina's grandmother let us come in. I told Mick, Jerome, and Alfie to stay downstairs with her grandmother, who was named Evelyn. I watched Evelyn make them a cup of tea as I climbed the stairs.

On the upper level, there were three bedrooms and one bathroom. The bathroom door was ajar, so I peeked into it, only to find it empty. I peeked into the bedroom to the left of it, and sure enough, Nina was standing inside, facing the wall opposite me. She wasn't doing anything.

I slowly pushed the wood door open, hearing the soft _reeeeaaak._ Nina turned around.

We were face to face for the first time in three years. We were seeing each other for the first time in three years. And for the first time in three years, I was hearing her voice. Nina was as beautiful as she was three years ago.

"I don't want to see you," she demanded. Her American accent was still there.

"Then why did you send me the photograph of our daughter?" I inquired, not moving from my spot because Nina didn't move from hers.

"Because I wanted you to know you had a child," Nina said simply. "I didn't put my last name on there for a reason, you know."

I groaned, realizing Mick was right. She really didn't want to be found, after all. "Look, Nina," I reasoned, "I get it. You're mad at me. That's understandable. I didn't even tell you my name when we met, much less my phone number, so you couldn't find me. You were left to care for an infant with no one but your grandmother. You're still a teen mom. I completely understand."

Nina stayed silent.

I continued, "But when I received that photograph, I vowed upon myself to make things better, to meet up with you again. To fix everything. I wanted to see you again. God, Nina, you were so amazing. I wanted to learn more about you. I wanted to be with you more. But when I woke up the next morning, you were gone, without as much as a note. I had no way of finding you. Granted, I did nothing to find you, but I had no idea that I could have gotten you pregnant."

"Well, you did," she mumbled, her gaze trailing to the floor. "I was scared. I found out I was pregnant after I missed my next period. I had no way of finding you because I didn't even know your name. Through my pregnancy, the baby didn't have a father. When I gave birth, my baby still didn't have a father."

"I know," I admitted. "I'm sorry. It was my fault as well; I should've done something to find you. I was in denial. I didn't think I could have gotten you pregnant. We had condoms. I don't really remember what we did with the condoms though . . ."

I continued, "But I'm sorry. I didn't try to find you and I didn't even have the decency to tell you my name. I left you, a fifteen-year-old, to fend for yourself when you didn't even have parents."

"It's okay," she forgave me, "It's my fault just as much as it is yours. But my daughter - our daughter . . . she's healthy and well, and that's all that matters."

"Were you scared at all?" I asked. "Being a teen mom?"

She looked up again, and I could tell that she was soaking something in. Me? What was it? My presence? She wouldn't move her gaze from my eyes. "Terrified," she admitted, answering my question. "I was completely and utterly terrified. But it's been three years since I was pregnant. I've gotten over it. Emma's still alive, I'm still alive, my Gran's still alive. I'm doing fine."

I didn't say anything for a minute or two, and when Nina asked me what was wrong, I asked her, "How's Emma doing? Emma . . . my daughter." I was still getting used to putting the two words together.

"Emma's fine," Nina answered, releasing the smile that I fell in love with three years ago. "It was hard telling her that she didn't have a father for the first two years of her life, but . . ."

I cringed, knowing that I was the one that left both of them alone. I hated thinking about the fact that I had missed the first two years of my child's life. I had missed the day when she took her first steps, said her first word, starting eating on her own. I missed all of that. I hadn't even seen her yet. I desperately wanted to see my daughter.

She still wouldn't move her gaze from my face. "But I'm here now," I said. "I want to make things better. God, Nina, this is the first time I'm seeing you in three years. You're just as amazing as I remember you. Well, except, that you're not asking many questions."

_I was musing about the next lyric when the same girl asked me, "What are you doing?"_

_I pursed my lips, already knowing she was a girl of many questions. There was no way to escape her, or to brush her off; she would continue asking you questions until you exploded. The only way to get rid of her was to answer her questions until she was bored._

"I know all there is to know about you," she smiled weakly. "The people at school think I'm 'obsessed' with you. If only they knew the truth . . ."

"Why don't you tell them the truth?" I wondered.

"Well, I can't exactly tell them I'm the mother of Fabian Rutter's child, can I? They'll think I'm crazy. You're a big thing, Fabian. So many teenagers in my school love you. They all think they're going to meet you and get married. They're like the fangirls of One Direction." Nina laughed and rolled her eyes. "They wouldn't believe me if I told them you got me pregnant, would they?"

I shook my head no, agreeing with Nina's statement. I didn't say anything, but she looked me in the eyes and said, "I missed you, Fabian. So much. I want to work things out with you."

"I do too," I agreed. I heard yelling and screaming coming from downstairs, and when Nina asked, "What was that?" with concern in her voice, I answered, "It's just my mates. They're probably just being idiots."

I heard my name being called, and I knew it was time to go. Nina realized this, and she ran over to her desk, ripped a piece of paper off from her notebook, and wrote something on it. I thought it was her phone number.

Well, I thought it was her phone number, until I saw what it said. On the small piece of ripped yellow paper, it said, _ninamartin0707. yahoo. com  
_

It was her email address.

"Why are you giving me your email address?"

"Because I'm not giving you my phone number," Nina said simply. "And if you think you're getting it any time soon, buddy, think again."

* * *

**A/N - There's going to be a small difficulty with the next chapter; in one week from today, I'm going to be in upstate NY, in Frost Valley, for three days. The next chapter WILL be posted on Friday, but it will be posted late at night, so I would check for chapter 4 on Saturday morning, because you'll definitely find it up on the archive then. K? I do hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day!~*  
~Julianna ^u^**


	4. The Daughter

**A/N - I just got back from Frost Valley, and it was amazing. Beyond words. Though it was tiring and I had to hold my pee in for four hours, it was a very nice trip.  
Soo, Chapter 4 is up and running! I sort of like how the beginning came out, though the ending could have been better. Anyway, I hope I can get more comfortable with this story by the end. I do hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day~!  
~Julianna**

* * *

**Fabian  
Chapter 4: "The Daughter"  
August 9th  
**

"What'cha doin', Fabian?" Chloe, one of my younger sisters, asked me as I was sitting on the couch in my den.

"Nothing," I answered, turning my attention back to the image on my laptop screen. It showed my email, and I was about to start typing a message to Nina.

Today was Monday, and according to the clock on my laptop, it was 2:32 pm. If I wasn't famous, I would most likely be in college right now, studying, or something along those lines. My manager insisted that I be homeschooled, and by that point, I wasn't confident enough to deny his offer (The Confidence Lessons were new at that point), so now I was homeschooled by my manager, Aaron.

I have mixed feelings about Aaron. I like him a lot as my manager, but sometimes he makes me want to strangle him, then bring him back to life, just so I can kill him a different way. He honestly cares about me and wants the best for me, but he can be extremely annoying. Aaron thinks he knows everything, the answer to every problem my team faces and every person problem I encounter.

I didn't think I'd be telling him about my problem with my daughter just yet. Or never. Yeah, never sounds good.

With my attention back to my computer screen, I typed in Nina's email address and was preparing to type a message in the box when a small green light started flashing at the bottom of my screen. Nina was online.

I smiled, and clicked on her avatar, bringing me to a chatbox. I typed in _Hey._ but before I could see what she responded with, Chloe leaned over my shoulder and asked, "Who's Nina?"

I jumped when I heard her voice. I turned my head towards her so I could see her dark brown hair and charcoal-blue eyes, exactly like mine. We looked alike, obviously, because we were silbings. All five of us looks alike; well, except for Olivia, my youngest sister. Olivia has red hair and green eyes. We all swear that she isn't our father's baby and our mother had an affair with another man.

Oh, how ironic that is. "Chloe," I scolded the girl standing behind me, "how many times do I have to tell you not to breathe in my ear?"

"Sorry," she apologized, taking a few steps back. "So, who's Nina?"

"That's none of your business," I muttered bitterly, moving my laptop away from my sixteen-year-old sister's eyes. She snickered and caught my laptop before I closed it. "Sorry, big brother, but you're gong to tell me who Nina is, or I go to report you to mum. You know she doesn't appreciate you talking to strangers on the internet."

I rolled my eyes. "She's not a stranger, Chloe," I explained, "she's a friend."

"The only people I ever see you talking to are Jerome and Mick," she pressed, moving around to the front of the couch so I could see her face. "You're not very sociable, which is weird, considering you're famous. But putting your fame aside, you're going to explain to me who 'Nina' is, or I'll get Olivia, Rosie, and Isabelle involved too. And it won't be pretty, considering you're the middle child, Fabian."

Chloe might have been two years younger than me, but she always found a way to bring me down. I took a deep breath and was about to explain to her who Nina really was, but luckily, my phone rang.

Saved by the ringtone. I sighed with relief when I saw the caller ID: Mick. Chloe noticed too, and rolled her eyes as she left the room. I answered the phone on the third ring. "Thanks, Mick," I greeted him.

"Uh . . . you're welcome?" Mick said, with confusion in his voice. "Anyway, mate, how's everything going?"

"Fine," I answered. "Boring. Chloe just interrogated me about who Nina was, and -" I paused, craning my neck to look around the room to confirm that she wasn't listening in. "-I almost had to tell her that Nina was the mother of my child."

Mick laughed through the receiver. "Wow, your sisters are aunts! Emma's going to have four aunts and no uncles, mate. How does that feel?"

"I'm rolling my eyes, Mick. I hope you can feel that on the other end of the line."

"Yeah, whatever," he stated. "Look. You're going to have to tell your family sooner or later. You can't just leave the house every other day to see Nina and Emma without them questioning where you're going, and you can't just lie to them every time. You're a father, Fabian. You're going to have to take responsibility."

"I know," I answered him, my voice remaining low and quiet, as it had been since I had answered. "I have no idea how to tell my mum that she's a grandmother. I'm her only son. I'm only eighteen - I mean, I'll be nineteen in twelve days, but - how can I tell her that I'm a father at nineteen?"

"No idea," Mick replied, which I didn't take as helpful. I placed my computer back on my lap, and I saw that Nina had responded to my IM. She had said: _Hi._

I typed up my response. _How are you?_ I held my mobile phone between my shoulder and my head, and Mick continued, "So are there any concerts for your fangirls today?"

I saw the green light in the corner of the computer blink again and my eyes lit up, thinking it might be Nina, might my smile faded when I saw that it was Aaron who had messaged me. "Speak of the devil," I muttered, clicking on his profile and reading what he had sent me. The message read: _Call me, Fabian. I think I may have booked you another concert!_

"Wonderful," I muttered to myself. I loved performing concerts, but singing had been the last thing on my mind these last two days. Mick presumed over the phone that I had a concert, and I confirmed his suspicion. He laughed, said "Talk to you later," and hung up.

I responded to Aaron: _Okay. Cool. Call you in a minute._ and dialed his number. He picked up after the first ring.

"Fabian!" he began, and I silently groaned as I leaned back against the couch. I listened to him talk about the concert he booked me, where I was performing, and how many I was performing for. I knew I should've taken account of the information he was telling me, but after reading Nina's response of _I'm fine. What about you? _I started to type a response back.

_Sisters are annoying, _I started my reply. _One of my sisters won't leave me alone. You'd think at sixteen she'd be more mature about who I'm talking to on the internet._

_One of?_ was Nina's response.

_Yeah. I have four sisters. -_-_

"Fabian? Are you listening to me?" Aaron's voice brought me back to reality. I jumped a little out of my seat, but my reply to him came quick.

"Yeah, I'm listening." After Nina's message of _Well, that sucks_ came up on screen, I couldn't respond because Aaron asked me another question.

"Than what did I just tell you?"

"Um . . ."

"Exactly," Aaron said, but he didn't sound annoyed. In fact, he almost sounded amused. "Just come to the the Theater of Nassau in one hour, and then we'll discuss who you were talking to on the internet."

I didn't even have time to protest that I wasn't talking to anybody before he hung up. I rolled my eyes at my phone and threw it down onto the couch, and proceeded to reply to Nina's message.

_Tell me about it. How's Emma? _I heard footsteps from the other hall, but ignored it as Nina's message came back only a few seconds later.

_She's fine. I told her about you. She wants to meet you_.

My eyes widened as I processed her words. _Can I? I've never seen my daughter before. Ever. But beware because I might freak out and pass out because I don't think the fact that I'm a dad has fully sunk in yet. _

_Sure__. Are you free today? _

The footsteps were growing louder, and I could feel a shadow looming over me, but yet again, I ignored it and responded. _I'm free after six. Does six pm sound good?_

_Great, _Nina replied, and the green light signaling she was online went dead. Nina had logged off.

"God, I wish I had her phone number," I muttered bitterly. If I had her phone number, talking to Nina would be much easier.

I was about to close my laptop when a very familiar voice said, "You're a dad?"

I turned around, and I saw Chloe standing behind me.

**xXx**

It took a bit of explaining and a lot of persuading to convince Chloe not to tell anyone else that I was a father. She was intent on telling mum, dad, and the rest of our sisters, Rosie, Olivia, and Isabelle, but with a pleading look spread across my face, Chloe agreed not to tell.

Now, there were seven people involved in my secret: Jerome, Mick, Alfie, Chloe, Nina, Evelyn (Nina's grandmother) and myself. I didn't know if anyone else on Nina's side knew her secret, but let's leave it at seven people that knew the famous Fabian Rutter had a child name Emma.

Normally, I don't like my four sisters coming with me to my concerts, but it was potent that Chloe came with me to this one. She liked spilling secrets, but this was one secret she had to keep. Riding in the limo were myself, Chloe, and Aaron.

After we arrived at the Theater, my stylists prepared me, my vocalists practiced with me, and Aaron gave me another "Confidence Lesson", much to my embarrassment. After all the backstage madness, I stepped out onto the stage to face a coliseum filled with people.

I loved the feeling when I came out with my guitar and saw all of the real, living, breathing people who took time out of their day to come see me in concert. It filled my heart with joy, and that was where I gained the real confidence to perform, not the cheesy "Confidence Lesson" that Aaron gave me.

The screaming girls. The bright lights of the stage. The music from the band. The sound of my own voice.

It was amazing. My voice came out loud and proud, reverberating through the whole theater. The cheering of the crowd was the loudest sound of the whole afternoon. My guitar strummed, and my heart swelled.

I was Fabian Rutter, the famous singer and musician. I was known around the world. People knew my music and liked it. Plenty of strangers knew my voice, as the theater had filled up only ten minutes ago. I was famous.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't be so famous with Nina when I showed up forty minutes late. I said hello to some of my fans and took pictures with them, but when one of them asked me why I sounded rushed, I took off into the car after that.

Aaron was driving. "Where are we going, again?"

"To Picton," I answered, remembering where Nina lives. Aaron groaned, but honestly, it doesn't take that long to drive from Woolton, where I live, to Picton. Chloe was being driven home by my mum, so she was gone. When we arrived on Nina's street, I opened the car door, but Aaron stopped me by asking, "Where are you going, exactly?"

"To a friend's house," I recited, as I had practiced my dialogue in the car before.

Aaron nodded his head, looking confused and probably thinking something along the lines of, _Jerome and Mick don't live in Picton_, but he drove away, leaving me in front of Nina's house.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked up the front door. Alfie wasn't here to knock on the door for me, so I quietly rapped on the door with my knuckles.

And I waited. But I wasn't waiting long, because Nina's grandmother opened the door with a smile plastered on her wrinkled face. "Ah, Fabian!" she beamed. "It's nice to see you again."

"You too, Ms. Martin," I greeted, smiling at her. I thought Evelyn was a nice lady, but I still wasn't sure what happened to Nina's parents. "Where's Nina? She invited me over today."

"Yes, I think she's in the common room. Go right ahead."

I thanked her, and walked slowly down the hallway to the living room. As I neared the white-carpeted room, I heard Nina's voice, and a small smile spread across my lips. I walked over to the doorway and said, "Nina."

She turned around, but she didn't return my smile. She walked uncomfortably towards me, and when she pushed herself off of the carpet, I caught the first sight of my daughter.

She looked exactly like she did in the photograph. Emma's short, light-brown hair cropped at her neck; she had inherited that trait from her mom. Her eyes, on the other hand, had come from me. They weren't Nina's color, which was pale-green; they were blue. They weren't the same blue as the ocean or the sky, though; they were more of cement-road blue, like a charcoal color.

When I saw her, the confirmation was evident. She had my eyes, Nina's hair, and her smile as well. When I had met Nina three years ago at that coffee shop, the thing that had made me fall for her was her smile. It was so beautiful and genuine, curious and exuberant. The smile that had made me want more until I was lying naked on top of Nina's body.

Emma was definitely my daughter.

I addressed Nina, who was now standing in front of me. "Hey," I said awkwardly, and she returned the word. "So, um, I'm here to meet Emma."

"Right," Nina murmured. I didn't understand her look of hurt as she walked back into the living room, grabbing Emma's small hand and leading it towards me.

"Who's this?" Emma asked, in her voice that almost sounded exactly like her mother's. It was the first time I had heard my daughter's voice. This was the first time I was seeing my daughter in person. It was the first time I was touching my daughter, holding her. I had missed the first two years of my daughter's life, and that's something that would make me feel guilty for the rest of my life.

"That's your daddy, Emma," Nina explained, giving her a little push towards me, who was towering over her on the wooden floorboards.

"Daddy?" Emma asked, and Nina nodded, tears forming in her eyes. I didn't understand why she was crying, but she turned away and sat down on the brown couch, watching me in front of my daughter.

"Yeah . . ." I whispered, crouching so I was down to Emma's level. "Yeah, Emma, I'm your dad." The words sunk in. It was only two days after I had received the photograph, and I still couldn't process the sentence _Fabian is a father_. It was unreal to me.

"I'm your daddy, Emma," I continued, as Emma walked over to me on steady feet. "I'm your father. I missed two years of my daughter's life, and you didn't know who your dad was for two years, but I'm here now. I'm your daddy."

"Daddy!" Emma exclaimed, and she fell into my arms. I was too shocked to register what was happening for a moment, so I looked to Nina for help. Still sitting on the brown couch, she released the smile I fell in love with, and I knew everything was going to be okay.

I placed my hand on the back of Emma's neck, pulling her closer to me. I was feeling my daughter for the first time, but I didn't know what to feel. I was only nineteen, and I was hugging my two-year-old daughter that I had made when I was sixteen. I didn't know if I should regret that I had made her, or if I should feel happy.

"I'm your father," I whispered again, hugging her tighter. "And I'm here to stay. I promise."

"Promise is a scary word, Fabian," Nina spoke up, from where she was sitting only a few meters away. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

I picked Emma up in my arms, but instead of defending myself against Nina's statement, I asked, "Is it okay if I hold her?"

Nina giggled and rolled her eyes. "Fabian, she's your daughter too. Of course it's okay if you hold her."

Emma rested her head on my shoulder, and the rush of unsorted emotions came rushing back. I pushed them away and addressed Nina's statement about promises. "I _am_ going to be here. I was a teenager when we met, Nina. I'm almost nineteen now, and I can take care of myself. I promised I'd stay with both of you, and that's what I'm going to do. _I promise._"

"You're _famous_, Fabian," Nina protested. This wasn't at all like the Nina I met three years ago. "You could go away on tour or something, leaving us _again_. And - and there are crazy people out there. A guy with a gun could come around and shoot you or a fan could come and kidnap you or-"

"A fan's not going to kidnap me," I chuckled, bouncing up Emma a bit higher, as she was falling down my side. "I can promise that much."

Nina sighed, leaning back against the couch. "What's it like?" she began. "Being famous. What's it like? Having girls follow you around every corner? People wanting your autograph? Performing in front of crowds?"

"It's terrifying," I admitted. Nina, at least, knew that much, from when we met in the coffee shop. I wasn't that open towards her, but she kept frying me, trying to get me to open up. "I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I still love writing songs and performing, and I always will. I'll always pee my pants at the sight of a crowd."

Nina released her smile again, but for no reason at all. "What's the smile for?" I asked innocently, and her answer surprised me in the best way possible.

"Fabian Rutter, you're still the guy I met in the coffee shop three years ago. You're still the guy I fell in love with, even though I didn't even know your name."

* * *

**A/N - I have this idea that I'm going to end each chapter of this story with dialogue, because each of the last three chapters have ended in dialogue.  
I've only been away for two and a half days, but I missed writing so much that I'm going to try to write all day tomorrow, because chapter 31 of Don't Be Afraid** i**sn't yet finished, so . . . chapter 5 is in Nina's POV, so look forward to that.  
Review?**


	5. The Obsessed

**A/N - Yeah, I missed a week. But I wasn't satisfied with how the chapter came out, and I'm still not happy with it, even when I rewrote the whole thing. I quoted Mean Girls in the end so I kind of like that ;) Okay...on with the chapter, I guess? R&R?  
~Julianna**

* * *

**Nina  
Chapter 5: "The Obsessed"  
September 4th, 2012**

The sound of an all too familiar voice and the bright white light illuminating from the cell phone on the nightstand woke me up.

Fabian Rutter's voice. People at my school claimed that I was "obsessed" with him - if only they knew the truth. After I saw Fabian Rutter's face for the first time, when all of the girls in Callina Academy were obsessed with the singer, I knew it was_ him,_ the boy whom I had a one-night stand with, yet never learned his name.

Listening to Fabian's voice comforted me. While he lived his life without a worry in the world, doing what he loved, all without the knowledge that he had a daughter, I sat at home with my headphones planted in my ears, listening to his beautiful voice.

After all, no one would really believe me if I claimed that I was the mother of Fabian Rutter's child. He was like One Direction in my school - a great amount of people admired him, had a crush on him. They claimed that they 'were going to be his wife'.

They knew just about as much about him as I did the night I met him. Which was basically nothing, except the fact that he was a song-writer and wanted to go

Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I reached my arm over to the wooden nightstand, feeling around my phone. My hand eventually grasped it and I brought it over to my face.

Fabian's voice, still screaming in the dead of the night, silenced when I declined the call. The caller ID read _Eddie. _As much as I loved him, I refused to talk to him at 5:00 in the morning.

I groaned when I heard his voice again - Eddie had called back. I muttered to myself as I accepted the call this time. I greeted my best friend with, "Eddie, why the hell are you calling me at five in the morning? What do you want?"

"Well, good morning, Little Miss Sunshine!" I could practically feel Eddie's smile through the receiver. "Just thought I'd remind you that it's a Tuesday."

"You suck."

"Ah, not so fast, Nina!" Eddie cautioned, knowing that I'd be moving my finger towards the red button. "It's a Tuesday, that just so happens to be the first day of school. So get your fat ass out of bed and get ready for another fun year at Callina Academy!"

Instead of me hanging up, it was the opposite; Eddie was the one to do that. I rolled my eyes when the call had been ended, throwing my phone onto the opposite end of the bed I was sitting up in.

I had known Eddie since my first week in Liverpool. Since we were the only Americans in our neighborhood, we instantly clicked. Soon enough, we'd added Mara Jaffray to our gang. It had been the three of us since the first year of high school - we'd been through everything, including pregnancy.

I'd been the one to get pregnant, obviously. My first few months in my new school had been going fairly well; I had made two great friends, after all. No one was my mortal enemy and no one despised me yet. That quickly changed when the new year came around, and news got out that I was pregnant.

Things came crumbling down after that. Since I was American, and in second year of high school, they called me the "Sophomore Slut". They didn't call the grades in high school the same as they did in the United States, so the jerks thought it would be the 'perfect name'. They still called me that, and it's been over two years since I had given birth.

School was hard on me as well. With being a teen mom of a two-year-old and going into my final year of high school, I was struggling. It helped that one of my best friends was Mara Jaffray, the straight-A student and current Valedictorian to tutor me, but whatever she said just seemed to go through one ear and out the other. I was still flunking a bunch of my subjects.

Wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I ripped the blankets off of my body and threw my legs over the side of my bed. With unsteady legs, I walked over to Emma's crib and leaned over the side, only to see a tiny two-year-old sleeping soundly.

Emma had turned 2 only a few weeks ago, so she'd be in the crib for another couple of months. The clock on my phone read 5:14 a.m - early in the morning on the first day of school. Eddie had acted as if I didn't know what day it was, but I did, of course.

It had been almost one months since I sent Fabian the photograph of Emma. All I wanted to do was let him know that he got me pregnant. I left my last name out for a reason, but Fabian tracked me down. When we reunited, he told me he wanted to make things right; to form a dysfunctional family of a nineteen-year-old dad, a seventeen-year-old mother, and a two-year-old child.

We'd been talking by email for almost a month. I hadn't seen him in person since he came over my house to meet Emma for the first time. Fabian and I had been talking almost every day, and we'd been getting along great. It was almost like we hadn't met in that coffee shop three weeks ago and had sex with each other.

We didn't have a lot to talk about, but somehow we managed to keep conversations going for hours on end during the summer. We learned a lot about each other; more than I'd ever learned in that one night I'd known him.

It had been only one night, but I'd fallen for him hard. The only thing I really remembered about him all those years was the color of his eyes; they were blue. Not a sky-blue or an ocean-blue - they almost belonged to him, and only him. They were his blue eyes, and no one else's.

I was reminded of him every day - after all, I did give birth to his child. I had to think of him, even though I didn't want to. I was not going to abort my baby or give it away for adoption. It was my baby, and I'd keep her, even though she wouldn't have a father.

She had the same eyes as her father, which only made me more depressed every time I looked into them. She had my hair color, but she had Fabian's exact eye color. I thought that maybe I could've forgotten him; I was ninety-nine percent sure that I'd never see him again, but whenever I saw the charcoal-blue color of Emma's eyes, my heart sunk into the pit of my chest.

Leaving Emma to sleep, I grabbed my laptop from under my bed and opened up my email, only to see an IM from Fabian. I smiled when I read his message: **Nina, we've been talking by email for almost a month. Do you feel compelled to give me your phone number yet?**

I chuckled softly and responded: **Nice try.**

When there was no response, I realized that he'd probably be asleep, considering it was 5 AM. I closed the laptop, and ever so silently, pulled on my uniform for Callina Academy. It wasn't like I enjoyed going to school anymore, but since it was my last year, I figured I'd endure another year. After all, Eddie and Mara would be at my sides.

**xXx**

Normally, I'd eat lunch alone, so I was beyond surprised when a voice across from me screamed, "GUESS WHO?"

My head jolted up, my gaze moving from my potatoes to Eddie, who was sitting across from me, grinning like a madman. A smile quickly spread across my face as I leaned over the table to hug him. "We finally have the same lunch period!" I beamed, as Eddie pushed me down.

"Nina, I'm so glad to see you again," he chuckled, digging into his meat. "I haven't seen you all summer! How have you been?"

I shrugged, shoving a forkful of sweet potatoes into my mouth. I didn't care if I talked with my mouth full in front of Eddie, and he didn't either. "Fine, I guess. Overwhelmed. Annoyed that Emma's babysitter wasn't around."

He rolled his eyes. "I told you, I had things to do. If I could've watched Emma, I would've. But things don't always work out the way you plan!" He held up his arms dramatically and his expression gave away the message of _What are you gonna do?_

I laughed, swallowing the potatoes. Ever since Emma was born, Eddie had been her babysitter when I couldn't watch her. He didn't mind watching her, so Emma's Babysitter became his official title. He was in my house so much that he didn't even have to knock anymore. Emma had even started calling him "Uncle Eddie".

Eddie was silent for only a moment, but then he asked, "Have you done anything about Fabian?" his voice was soft; he said the sentence carefully.

I realized that I'd been busy with Fabian the whole month of August. I hadn't spoken to either Mara or Eddie, because I'd been too busy with talking to the father of my child, and trying to make things work. We'd been separated for three years, so we were trying to make things work now.

Eddie, Mara, and my grandmother were the only three people in the world who knew the father of Emma was Fabian. Everyone else thought that I had a one-night stand with a random person I met. Because after all, no one would believe me if I told them that Fabian Rutter was the father of my child.

I remembered how I had responded to Fabian's message this morning. "No," I lied through my teeth. Staring down at my potatoes, I scooped up another forkful. I'd guessed Eddie was going to pressure me into telling to truth, but before he did that - thank _God_ - Mara sat down next to him.

"Heeelloooo," she drawled, setting her books and papers down on the table.

She straightened her pencils into an orderly line as Eddie greeted her, "Hey, Mara." Eddie's look of confusion and betrayal was laughable as she got up and moved, away from Eddie.

"Oh, okay," he began, his betrayed expression showing through his tone. "That's okay. It's not like I have feelings or anything. Just move away from Eddie. Eddie isn't hurt at all. Eddie doesn't want to strangle you or anything-"

"And Mara doesn't care," she retorted in her British accent. She rolled her brown eyes and turned to me. "I have the same lunch period as you two!" her smile broadened.

Eddie snorted, now chewing like a cow on his forkful of potatoes. "Eddie doesn't think that's such a good thing."

"Again, Mara doesn't care."

"Okay, can we stop talking in third person?" I suggested, chuckling in my seat. "It's obvious you have lunch with us, Mara. You're right here." And without her permission, I went scavenging into her bag, which I knew she hated. Ignoring her protests, I threw away loose sheets of papers and broken pencils, eventually coming across a thin rectangle that was her schedule. "Let's see what classes we have to together..."

I brought out my schedule to compare and I heard Eddie mutter under his breath, "Eddie wants Nina to compare his schedule with hers too."

I ignored him, realizing that Mara and I shared only one class together, and it was the class we were in right now: Lunch. "Aw," I pouted, throwing her schedule back with her books. With a look of horror, she reached across the lunch table to neaten out her rucksack.

I held out my hand towards Eddie. He smirked, and I already knew what he was going to say, but the words rushed quickly out of my mouth, "Eddie Miller, don't you dare say something in third person. Just give me your schedule before I get it myself."

"Fine. I'll just talk in second person. _First, you must decide whether or not to give Nina Martin your schedule. When you decide-_"

But he handed me his schedule anyway, still muttering under his breath in Second Person point of view. My spirits dampened even further when I realized that Eddie only shared my lunch period with me, too. In a fit of rage, I ripped the schedule back from Mara's hands. She let out a small yelp of surprise.

Comparing both Eddie's and Mara's schedule, I snorted and handed both of them back to the boy and girl. "None of us have classes with each other. This is the only time in the day we have together."

"Oh, thank God," Mara breathed, slouching back in her seat. "If I had to share classes with Eddie, I'd probably pack my bags and move to Switzerland."

"I can just feel the love," said Eddie bitterly.

We spent the next twenty minutes talking, and Eddie even apologized for missing out on his babysitting duties. I made him promise that he'd babysit next Saturday, and he happily agreed. In the last ten minutes before our next class, the Dreaded Two walked in.

"Something wicked this way comes," Eddie whispered across the table to Mara and I. Sure enough, Patricia Williamson and Joy Mercer came striding across the cafeteria towards us. I rolled my eyes, turning my attention back to my friends, but they were both on their way towards us.

"Hey, Eddie, Mara, Sophomore Slut," Patricia greeted, finally walking into earshot. I'd been hearing that nickname for the past three years, so it didn't really faze me anymore, like Patricia liked to think it did. Her red hair was lying on her shoulders, while her partner in crimes was brought up in a ponytail.

Both girls were cruel, but Joy was meaner than Patricia could ever be. She, in the flesh, was the one who had actually come up the name "Sophomore Slut". Joy giggling, and sticking close to Patricia's hip, followed her to the table behind us.

Eddie had his fists rolled up into balls. "I'm going to knock some sense into them -"

"Eddie, stop," I commanded him, and he sat down. He hated my nickname almost as much as I did; probably even more. When I said Eddie was like my big brother, I wasn't lying to cover up my feelings for him; he really was like my big brother. He protected me, and when he got into messes, I was there to help him. We were more like siblings than secret lovers.

"You're not going to let them call you that for the rest of the year, are you?" he growled. "It's your final year, Nina. Don't let bitches like them get to you."

"They're not," I sighed, turning my attention back to my potatoes. "I'm just sick of being called that every single day. It's been three years since I've been pregnant. I wish they would just give it up."

"If you ignore them, maybe they will!" Mara suggested hopefully.

I retorted, "It's kind of hard to ignore them when they're screaming right behind us," I scowled, tuning my body around so I could face Patricia and Joy, who were screaming to each other over something. After listening more carefully, I learned that they were talking about Fabian.

The one and only Fabian Rutter, who I had sex with when I was fifteen. The father of my child. Popular worldwide, and most commonly known at my school. Practically all the girls were obsessed with him. Joy Mercer in particular.

"Oh. My. Gosh," she began, her fangirl face already showing through her excitement. "In his previous concert, Fabes was soooo gorgeous! I mean, could he get anymore handsome? His singing voice is extraordinary, and the only thing that makes this all better is the fact that he lives so close to us! I could literally drive to see Fabes right now!"

"Fabes?" I whispered to Mara and Eddie, who were now listening in to their conversation. "His name isn't Fabes...it's Fabian. And he's never been asked to be called that before."

"And you would know that, how?" Eddie questioned, a smirk plastered on his face.

"Shut up," I snapped, listening in further to hear both of them again. After hearing the name "Fabes" about a thousand more times, I pushed myself off of my seat and strutted over to Patricia and Joy.

Joy was still talking to Patricia about Fabian when I approached them. When Patricia noticed my presence, she cocked an eyebrow and spat, "Can I help you?"

"Yes, actually, you can," I retorted, holding my arm behind my back. "I'd just like to tell Joy over here that his name is _Fabian_, not _Fabes_. Okay, have a nice day."

I flashed them a smile before walking away, but Joy called after me, "And how would you know that, you American git?"

In a matter of two seconds, the blood inside me boiled. A look of pure hatred crossed my face before I turned around and walked back to them. I didn't even have time to defend myself because Joy continued, "You Americans think you have the right to like musical artists that come from our country. One Direction fans in America are so annoying, and so are Fabian's fans there too. I bet you know nothing about him, and you consider yourself a fan!"

I clenched my hands into fists. Joy was wrong; in the month I had been talking to him by email, I learned more about him than Joy ever would, because I was actually talking to Fabian himself. I would know more about him than Joy would ever know.

I kept my anger under control. I couldn't say that I was the mother of Fabian's child, because either 1) no one would believe me or 2) everyone would hold the 'joke' against me. People in my school thought that I was just another fan of Fabian's. If only they knew the truth...

"Yeah, Joy. You're right. So you can go on believing that you and him are going to get married and have lots of children, and Patricia can go back to being the cruel girl she is. _Now_ you can have a nice day."

**xXx**

After I got home from school and kissed Gran hello, I ran up to my room and brought out my laptop from underneath my bed. Joy's statement that I didn't know anything about Fabian was still echoing in my mind, and I needed to prove her wrong, even if I'd never tell her in person.

I saw that Fabian had responded to my message from this morning. He had replied: **Can you at least give me the first number?**

I laughed and rolled my eyes. He had been at this ever since we first reunited; I refused to give him my phone number, because I didn't want to get too attached, or let him think he had some sort of connection to me. I typed in my reply: **Fine. The first number is 6, but that's all you're getting, so enjoy that :)**

I left my laptop running and walked over to Emma's crib, where she was taking a nap. A small smile started to creep up on my lips as I moved Emma's light-brown hair away from her face. My laptop beeped again and I sat on the floor, ready to reply to his message. **Maybe next month you can give me another number? **

**Maybe. :)**

His reply came quick, and I never thought that it would lead into us talking for hours.

**Fabian Rutter: So since today is September 4th, you'll have to give me the next number on October 4th. OK?  
Nina Martin: Sounds good. Hey...you do realize that we've almost been talking for a month, right?  
Fabian Rutter: Of course I do. A month of not knowing the mother of my child's phone number. Imagine how embarrased I felt when I had to tell my friends I only had her email.  
Nina Martin: GASP. You have friends?!  
Fabian Rutter: Haha, very funny. What's the point of this subject you brought up?  
Nina Martin: This obnoxious girl at school told me that I know nothing about you. Which so isn't true.  
Fabian Rutter: Hmm...I guess we'll have to test that. What's my favorite color?  
Nina Martin: Are you seriously giving me a quiz on yourself? And it's orange.  
Fabian Rutter: Yes. I am. And you're correct.  
Nina Martin: Then do you know what my favorite color is?  
Fabian Rutter: I thought this quiz was about me :(  
Nina Martin: Just give me the next question, you big baby.  
Fabian Rutter: :D OK. When's my birthday?  
Nina Martin: Wow, I have no idea. Because it's not like you made my type the birthday song on the computer on August 21st. I wonder when it could be?!  
Fabian Rutter: OK, you got me there. How many sisters do I have?  
Nina Martin: You seriously need to ask harder questions. 4.  
Fabian Rutter: You asked for it, Martin. How many years apart are Isabelle and Olivia? If you can answer this question honestly, I'll give you an oatmeal cookie the next time you see me :)  
Nina Martin: OH MY GOSH NO WAY. Okay, um...I know Isabelle owns her own house, so I'm presuming she's older than 22 and out of college. My estimate is that you guys are all 2 years apart, so...are Isabelle and Olivia 9 years apart?  
Fabian Rutter: You were close; 8 years.  
Nina Martin: IT WAS ONLY ONE YEAR AWAY! YOU STILL OWE ME AN OATMEAL COOKIE!  
Fabian Rutter: You got it wrong, so technically, I don't. But if you can get THIS ONE right, I'll give you TWO oatmeal cookies.  
Nina Martin: And if I get it wrong?  
Fabian Rutter: "And none for Nina Martin, bye."  
Nina Martin: Did you seriously just quote Mean Girls?  
Fabian Rutter: It's your fault for telling me to watch the movie last week. Okay, the next question: What's my least favorite food, but what's the quirk with that?  
Nina Martin: Your least favorite food are potatoes, but you love crisps and french fries.  
Fabian Rutter: Four for you, Nina Martin! You go, Nina Martin!  
**


	6. The Memories

**A/N - Hullo, there. I honestly have nothing good to say today. Um...chapter 6! Yay? There's nothing more to say here, but I do like this chapter...a little bit. I do hope you enjoy this chapter and I hope you have a sparkling day!~  
**

**Remember: Flashbacks are in ****_Italics _****and****_ Centered._**

* * *

**Fabian  
Chapter 6: "The Memories"**

"Remember the first time we met?"

Nina nodded, sitting back in her seat, folding her arms across her chest. "Of course I do," she answered. "I walked in here, ordered a coffee, and sat down next to you."

"I remember that day...it was a Sunday. You sat down next to me, and you said hi..."

_I was typing the fourth line of the second verse when someone sat across from me. I didn't look up; people sat at others tables all the time when there was no other place to sit. I saw her take a sip from the coffee she had ordered from the corner of my eye before she said, "Hi."_

_I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or not, but no one else talked and the girl sitting across from me didn't say anything either, so I figured she was talking to me. I reluctantly looked up from my laptop screen and replied, "Hi."_

"I didn't know that we'd be having sex in the next hour or two," I admitted, scratching the back of my neck."

"Neither of us knew, Fabian," Nina said softly, showing the slightest hint of a smile. "I don't think either of us really wanted to become parents that early, but...

"I still remember what you were doing," she mumbled, almost to herself. "You were writing a song...do you still have it?" she met my eyes, releasing her smile. The smile that had made me fall for her...

_The first thing I noticed when I saw her was her smile. Her smile was real. There was nothing fake to it; it wasn't forced, it wasn't obnoxious or ridiculous. Her smile was genuine, and her expression was full of curiosity. She looked like she liked mysteries and challenges._

"I don't think so," I answered Nina's question. "I was sixteen when I wrote it. I probably looked back on it a few months ago and tossed it because it was so lame or something." I chuckled softly, looking at Nina from across the table once again.

Only a few hours ago, I had asked Nina to meet me at the coffee shop where we met. It was still located where I lived, in Picton. Nina and I had been talking about the day we met for a few minutes now.

"It's crazy," she stated, taking a sip of her coffee. "It's been over three years since I set foot in this coffee shop. Three years since we...well, you know...did it. Two years since Emma was born..."

"What's funny," I began, "is that even though I've been talking to you on email for over a month now, I still haven't learned when Emma's birthday is. Is it sad that I don't even know my daughter's birthday?"

"A bit," she giggled, her green eyes shining. "Her birthday is May 25th."

I snapped, muttered "Oh, man," and smiled when I heard Nina laugh. When we'd been talking over email, she'd been so stressed with school and obnoxious people and taking care of our daughter by herself that I don't think she'd ever smiled when she typed in "lol". I liked that I was making her laugh.

"I'll add it to my calender: EMMA'S BIRTHDAY in big red letters so I don't forget my daughter's third birthday," I promised, with a joking tone.

Nina smiled again, but she remained silent. I supposed I had to make the next move, and I decided to crack another joke. "Do you feel compelled to give me your phone number yet? And why won't you give me your number? I mean, Nina; I'm Emma's father. I'm her other half. Hm?"

"And you're also _famous_," she hissed, lowering her voice the slightest bit. The owner of the coffee shop had offered to give us a table in the back of the shop (after I gave his daughter an autograph, of course.) After all, if I had been out in the open, people would notice me and take pictures, altering the whole world that Fabian Rutter was in a coffee shop in Picton.

"Things could happen," she reasoned, leaning forward the slightest bit. "I just don't want to give you my number just yet, okay? Please respect that."

Reluctantly, I nodded. I wanted to keep in touch with the girl sitting in front of me, but I also knew that I need to respect her. She was the mother of my child, after all. "Okay."

She sighed, taking a sip of the coffee in front of her. She seemed to be almost finished with it, and we only ordered it a few minutes ago. Nina didn't say anything, and neither did I.

There was an awkward silence between us after that. I wasn't confident enough to speak up, and Nina didn't want to seem to talk either. I had to keep this conversation going, because I couldn't risk losing Nina.

"Do you regret it?" Nina asked, finally breaking the silence, so I didn't have to.

"Regret what?" I questioned, although I already had an idea of what she was talking about.

"Do you regret that night?" she asked, so straight-forward the question could be mistaken for a pin. "You know...when we did it. Do you...regret it? I bet you completely forgot about me before I sent you the photograph..."

"You're right," I admitted, a look of guilt flashing across my face. "I wasn't. But I hadn't seen you in three years, and, well...I didn't think I could have gotten you pregnant. I figured that was only one of the many times I'd have sex in my lifetime, so...Nina, can I ask you a question? A personal question?"

"Ask away," she replied, folding her hands on top of the table, obviously willing to answer any question that was thrown at her.

"Were you a virgin when we met?" I asked the question carefully, crossing my feet under the table.

"Yes," she answered right away, as if the question didn't faze her the slightest bit. "I was fifteen when we had sex, Fabian. I only met that many people who I actually liked." she showed the smallest hint of a smile, never moving her gaze from mine. "And...what about you? Was I your first time?"

"Yeah," I replied, averting my gaze from her face. Neither of us were talking again, but under the circumstances, I understood.

I was a famous celebrity, and Nina was a struggling student in her final year of school. I was nineteen, talking to a seventeen-year-old over our two-year old daughter, which I had made when I was sixteen and when Nina was fifteen. Nina and her grandmother didn't have that much money to support Emma with, but I had all the money in the world.

After a long silence, I spoke. "You were the first person in so long to actually take an interest in me," I admitted, blinking my glasses-needing eyes to see Nina's face clearly. "No one really thought I was that interesting when we met, but you did. You asked me so many questions, and I loved talking to you for that short time..."

_I waited for the girl to ask another question, but she held back. I was happy for that in a sense; I could finally type the song without any interruptions. I was upset about the fact, also; I wanted to learn more about this mystery girl and why she seemed so interested in me._

_I sat silently for a minute, carefully looking at her from the corner of my eye. I thought she'd be a wonderful inspiration to work with, to write about. She was outgoing, confident, and I'd definitely classify her as a "people-person". When she met someone, she wanted to get to know them, to unlock their secrets and let them know they were welcome to talk to her and become her friend._

_I was thinking she wasn't going to ask me anything anymore when she said, "Do you play an instrument?"_

_By now, I pretty much figured out that I wasn't going to get any work done with her around. I saved my document and closed my laptop so I could look at her again. The door to the coffee shop opened when someone walked in, blowing her light-brown hair over her face, blocking her pale-green eyes for a second, but it never dared to cover her smile. Her smile was something else completely, a part of her that was almost something else entirely. It stood out on her like a sore thumb, and I was glad it did._

_I met her eyes again, as my mum had always said it was good manners to meet someone's eyes when you talk. "Yes, I do. I play the guitar." was the answer to her question._

_I could feel the tips of my lips start to creep upward, and I knew I was smiling. In my school, everyone pretty much had their own groups of friends, and I had . . . well, myself. I liked keeping to myself and I didn't care that no one wanted to strike up a conversation with me, but I would prefer having a friend than not having one. This girl in front of me continually asking me questions made me happy, and I'm quite sure it showed._

"Do you still play the guitar?" Nina asked, remembering when we had met. She released a small giggle, and the question made me laugh, too. Even after three years, she still was a Girl of Many Questions.

"Of course I do," I said, my grin stretching from ear to ear. "This time, you can actually get to hear me play. You want to hear?"

Releasing another laugh, she nodded feverishly. "Yeah! I'd love that! Of course, I've heard you before, but..."

My eyebrows furrowed, my eyes narrowed, and I leaned my body forward the slightest bit. "What do you mean?" I inquired, tilting my head. "You didn't hear me when we first met, obviously. How did you hear me play...?"

"I'm Nina Martin, the obsessed fan, remember?" she said, waving her hands along with her words. "I heard you on the radio, or seen you on videos on the Internet, or...you get it. I've seen you play before. I kind of wished I had heard you play in person first, though." Her look of hurt returned.

"Well, you can," I offered, shifting around in my chair. I met Nina's eyes again. "Do you want to come to my house?"

Her eyes widened, and I could tell that she was shocked. "Oh! Um...I...I don't..."

"It's okay, Nina," I reassured her, reaching across the table for her hand, which in reply, she didn't take. "You don't have to come. I just figured you could come with Emma or something and we could all just hang around and talk..."

Her look of shock remained, but I continued the conversation. "Speaking of Emma, how is she?"

Taking a deep breath, obviously relieved, she replied, "She's fine. Probably taking a nap right now or something, I guess."

I never wanted to make Nina feel awkward or uncomfortable. We'd been talking for more than a month, but things still weren't smooth between us. I always felt like Nina thought we were moving too fast; I invited Nina over my house once before and based on her responses it seemed like she was having a mental breakdown. I didn't know why she refused to come to my house.

I decided to ask her. "Nina, my house isn't contaminated," I explained, releasing a small laugh in spite of myself. "I don't know why you don't want to come to my house, but you have to understand why I'm asking you to do so. You're the mother of my child, and I'm the father of said child. We have to work together to set things right. Not to mention that I want to see my daughter again. Nina, would you like to come with me to my house?"

She jolted back, as if someone had electrocuted her. I asked her what was wrong, and she responded with, "That's what you asked me when we met...if I wanted to come to your apartment. And...I did. And then we...you know..."

I knew what she was talking about. Right before we left the coffee shop when we met, I asked Nina if she wanted to come with me to my apartment, and that led to us making out, then eventually making love.

_"Thanks," I grinned, genuinely thankful. "You're a great girl, Nina."_

_"Aw, shucks, don't make me blush," she said, despite the fact that she was already blushing. She looked me in the eyes again, saying, "I wish I could learn more about you, Mystery Boy. I know next to nothing about you, other than you have a talent in the musical arts. You could specify a bit more there, you know."_

_"Hey, that's what I am: a mystery," I deadpanned as I pushed myself off of my chair, placing my laptop in my rucksack, and made my way over to Nina._

_When I stood in front of her, she said, "What are you doing?"_

_"Asking you something," I stated simply, and then continued, "Nina, would you like to come with me to my apartment?"_

She'd never spoken of 'that night' when we were talking since we reunited. I understood why; I had gotten her pregnant, leaving her to take care of a baby by herself, ruining her life.

I didn't know how much longer her grandmother would last. Nina had told me over email one day that her parents had died in a car accident a long time ago, so that's why she lived with her Gran. Her grandmother was growing older by the day; how much longer would she last? Nina was seventeen; no one wants to adopt an girl that's almost eighteen.

"Look," I reasoned. All I wanted was for Nina to come to my house to talk for a little bit, but by her actions, I could see she really didn't want to. "The last thing I want to do is pressure you into going, but as parents, we need to work together. Okay? I promise that my house isn't surrounded by crazy fangirls or old men with cameras. It's isolated on a big hill, far away from any civilization. I promise. Will you come with me to my house?"

Nina scratched the back of her neck, and I immediately regretted asking her. I knew she thought we were moving too fast - and that was understandable. She was a seventeen-year-old mother who had just been reunited with her one-night lover and she was feeling conflicted and confused. I completely understood why she was scared.

"It's okay," the words rushed out of my mouth. "You don't have to do if you don't want - "

"No, no," she interrupted, waving her hands in front of me. "It's fine. I'll come with you to your house. You know, after I go home and get Emma first."

"Great!" I exclaimed, pushing myself out of my chair so fast that I startled Nina into the back of hers. "Meet me at my house on 12 Oakes Avenue at noon. See you then!"

I left the coffee shop in a hurry, leaving the mother of my child alone and confused.

**xXx**

I really didn't plan that out.

I realized that as soon as I pulled my car up my driveway, seeing two other cars parked next to me: my mothers and my sister, Isabelle's, car. I didn't think that they'd be home, but my lingering suspicion was confirmed as soon as I stepped into the doorway and was surrounded by five females and not one male but myself.

"Fabian, where were you?" Chloe, my second youngest sister growled as I closed the wooden door behind me.

Chloe was the only person on my side of the family that knew my secret. I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone, especially my mum; how on Earth could I tell her that her nineteen-year-old son was a father? Not to mention my dad, who would probably disown me when I admitted to it.

My heart already sinking to the pit of my stomach, Chloe pulled me into the other room, leaving Olivia, Rosie, Isabelle, and Mum behind. Chloe dragged me into the kitchen, which was almost completely made out of wood.

My sixteen-year-old sister stood in front of me, her hands on her hips. A smirk spread across my face; Chloe always thought she scared me (which, in all honesty, she did most of the time), but right now she was just being immature. "Fabian, where were you? We've been worried sick!" she scolded, pointing her finger at me.

I pushed her finger down and answered, "I was somewhere, but that's none of your business. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to ask Isabelle something." I released a small laugh as I started to walk toward the common room again.

I had a plan to ask my oldest sister a favor, but before I even stepped through the doorway, Chloe asked, "You were with Nina, weren't you?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. I didn't turn around to face her, because I was just too scared to do so. I could imagine the furious expression on her face; surprisingly, her voice was soft when she spoke again. "Nina. The mother of your child. Were you seeing her? _Are_ you seeing her currently? Are you dating her?"

I turned around, only to see that there were tears streaming freely down Chloe's face. I didn't know what to do, so I stood in my place and responded, "I'm not dating her, but yes, I met her in a coffee shop. I know you don't want me to, Chloe, but I have to. I'm a father now...I need to take responsibility for my actions. Nina and I are trying to make it work. You have to understand that."

I left without another word. When I stepped back into the common room, I properly greeted everyone, hugging Rosie tightly because she'd been away in college for the past year and a half. Isabelle was out and done with college, and Olivia was still in Junior High; she was in Grade 8. Olivia was probably the most shy and insecure girl I've ever met, but I knew she loved being around me.

I called Isabelle into the other room, far away from Chloe, who was probably still crying in the kitchen. Isabelle followed me into the Den, which, was made of wood too. It seemed all of our house was made of wood. The Den, though, was small, only consisting of one couch, a plush seat and a small table in the middle of the room. Isabelle followed my action by sitting next to me on the couch.

"I need you to do me a favor," I deadpanned, shifting around in my seat uncomfortably. Isabelle narrowed her eyes at me, surely suspecting something was suspicious.

"And what is this favor you speak of?" she questioned, but I already knew she would accept the favor; Isabelle was too nice of a person to decline.

I cleared my throat, looking her in the eye; she'd take me more seriously that way. Isabelle had the same color eyes as me; blue, but not a sky blue or an ocean blue, more like a charcoal blue. As Nina told me over email a few weeks ago, my eyes 'only belonged to me'. Just like I fell for her smile, she told me she fell for my eyes.

Emma had inherited my eyes and Nina's hair, so whenever Nina looked into the eyes of her child, she was reminded of me. Every day, every minute, every second of every day.

I finally said, "I need you to get everyone out of the house."

She looked more shocked than I thought she'd be. Her eyes widened and she tilted her head like a dog, proceeding her actions by inquiring, "Why do you need that?"

"Look, I really can't explain," I groaned, already knowing that this would take a bit of explaining; I couldn't just come out and say that I was a father. Chloe had found out by eavesdropping; I wouldn't have told her a secret like that in a million years. I continued, "I just need you to get everyone out of the house. Make up a lie or something. Take them to your house," I suggested.

Isabelle was 22; she was out of college, dating some guy I had never seen before. She owned her own house, so she'd be able to take everyone out. It took a bit of coaxing, but I eventually got her to agree with me by saying I'd give her 30 pounds and three quarters of my earnings at the next concert Aaron was planning for me. In a blur of movement, Isabelle moved Rosie, Olivia, Mum, and Chloe into her car and disappeared in a flash of light.

I heaved a great sigh and sat back against the couch. I listened to the silence, smiling in spite of myself; Nina and I would be alone.

Nina and I would be alone...where _was_ Nina? I told her to be at my house at noon, and my watch told me it was almost one. I knew she had to go and get Emma at her house, but there was a possibility that she had chickened out and decided not to come. I _had_ told her my address before I left the coffee shop...

I blinked, grabbing my laptop, which sat on the arm of the couch. I opened it up, bringing my email on the screen. The green light on Chat wasn't blinking, so Nina wasn't online, but I sent her a message anyway.

**Hey. If you forgot, my address is 12 Oakes Avenue...are you okay? It's fine if you don't come. I just hope you're okay, since you're not online. **

I closed the laptop after I sent the Instant Message. She didn't respond, which lowered my spirits, but something better happened.

The doorbell rang.

I ran to the door so fast I don't even remember running to it. I straightened myself out in the quickest manner possible, and when I opened the door, there stood Nina, with my daughter holding her hand, many inches shorter than her mum.

I hadn't seen Emma since approximately August 9th - two days after Nina sent me the photograph. I hadn't seen her since - it had been over a month.

I was beyond surprised when Emma came wobbling towards me on he two steady feet. I had to crouch down to reach her, but when I was her height, she wrapped her small, thin arms around me and I picked her up again. I heard her mumble the word "Daddy" into my shoulder, and I couldn't hide the smile that I issued after I heard that.

"Hey, Emma," I breathed, pulling her closer. "Daddy's here." I rocked on the balls of my feet, moving back and forth.

Nina interrupted, with a playful tone, "Be careful, she falls asleep if you do that."

My eyes widened, and I set Emma down on the ground again. I wanted to spend time with my daughter; not watch her sleep. As fun as that may be, I organized this meeting to have a playdate with her. I wasn't sure that Emma ever had a playdate before...

"Did she?" I asked, stupidly thinking that Nina would be able to read minds. I called myself stupid right after I said it, and when Nina tilted her head in confusion, I asked, "Did Emma ever have a playdate before?"

"Um..." I could tell she wasn't telling me the truth. I gave her _the look_, and she admitted, "No, she hasn't had a playdate before. There are no two year olds in my neighborhood, and well...no one really wants to spend time with a girl who's mother had her when she was sixteen." She gave me a look like _What are you going to do?_

An awkward silence issued between us. Nina scratched her hair again, and I told her to come in, which she did, but uncomfortably at that. I called her into the living room, which, once again, had a wood floor and brown leather couches. The television was still on, leaving the show the girls were watching before they left.

Speaking of them, the first thing Nina said was, "Where are your sisters?"

A war started raging in my head; I wanted Nina to trust me, and the way to do that was to tell the truth; but should I tell her the truth in this case? Would she take offense if I told her that I bribed my family to leave? I decided to play safe and tell her a lie; I'm sure that in the future she'd understand. After all, we were still in the process of making things work as teenage parents.

"This is a good spot, though," Nina deadpanned, sitting on the couch, with Emma trying to climb on. I gave my child a small push so she could get on easier, but she scolded me, "You don' have to do that. I can clim' on by myselv."

Even though I was smiling, I sent Nina a look, and she chuckled in response. She mouthed, _She's very independent,_ with a roll of her eyes. I laughed also, and took a seat next to Nina. Emma's legs were so small they barely left the couch.

"Would you say that Emma has an American accent?" I asked, trying to make conversation. Nina laughed once again and simply nodded, nothing uttering out of her mouth.

"Well, considering she lived with her American mother for two years, yes, I'd think she has an American accent. Aaaaaand, now you're wondering why I still have my American accent if I've been living in Britain for three years?"

I nodded, and she explained. After that explanation, I jumped off the couch, asked Nina for permission if I could pick Emma up (Her response was "GOD FABIAN YOU DON'T HAVE TO ASK SHE'S YOUR CHILD TOO"), and I set Emma down on the carpet in the Den.

After I realized that I had only seen Emma two times in the last two months, I asked Nina what Emma liked to play. After she answered, we played together as a dysfunctional family, until I asked Nina a forbidden question.

"Hey, Nina...I...um...I want you to..."

"Spit it out, Fabian," she told me, laughing at my stutter.

I couldn't say it in my head, so I decided to just spit it out. "Nina, would you come to my concert with me? I have one tomorrow in the area, and I want you to come. You're the mother of my child, and we're trying to make things work, and I really want you to come with me."

She didn't say anything right away, and I knew her answer was no. As much as I respected her, I wanted her to come to my concert more than anything.

"I don't think I should," she told me, not daring to meet my eyes. "I don't think I'm ready..."

"That's okay, Nina. That's completely okay. Though, do you still want to hear me play my guitar live?"

Her eyes lit up and she nodded her head feverently. I bolted up the stairs and into my bedroom, grabbed my guitar, and rushed downstairs. Nina didn't say anything, but her ear-to-ear smile talked for her. I remained silent, also, as I hoisted my guitar up into position and started to play the first song that came to mind.

"_Oh, but that one night was more than just right; I didn't leave you, 'cause I was all through. Oh, I was overwhelmed, and frankly scared as hell, because I really fell for you...oh, I swear to you, I'll be there for you, this is not a drive-by..."_

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**A/N - Weee. I'm still not comfortable with this story. Maybe I would be, if you reviewed...? *hint hint wink wink nudge nudge* ;)  
~Julianna**


	7. The Interview

**A/N - In case anyone was wondering; I already have the night Nina and Fabian met pre-written, so I didn't make the flashbacks up on the spot. You guys will read the night they met once chapter 25 is published; that's a whole 18 chapters away! :o**

**Whew, I'm actually writing this chapter early; it's Monday evening right now. Despite what you may think, writing two multi-chapters at the same time is actually kind of exhausting. I have a whole notebook dedicated to Don't Be Afraid and Lost & Found.**

**All right, let's begin Chapter 7! In total, Lost & Found is going to have 26 chapters (27 if I have an epilogue.) If I update every week from now on, Lost & Found should end on September 13th, 2013. This chapter focuses a little more on Fabian's fame c: **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own House of Anubis; all rights go to Nickelodeon. And even if I changed my name to Nickelodeon, it still wouldn't be mine. Jerome, however, is trying to smuggle me the papers so I can own it. Let's see how it goes...**

**I do hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day~**  
**~Julianna**

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**Fabian  
Chapter 7: "The Interview"**

The dreaded day finally arrived.

Aaron had told me many, many weeks ago that he scheduled an interview for me, but I brushed it aside. I completely forgot about the interview that was supposed to be on September 16th, so I was rudely awakened by the one and only Isabelle, the oldest of the Rutter siblings.

Being famous was exhausting.

Isabelle had no sympathy for me as she shook me wake, making me fall out of my bed. Instead of helping me up, she laughed at me from above and muttered as she walked out of the room, "Get dressed. Mum is making me drive you to the interview. And in the car, maybe you can tell me why you made everyone evacuate the house the other day."

So I made myself get up off the floor after many minutes of debating, brushed my teeth and combed the mop that I called my hair, pulled on some appealing clothes, and trudged downstairs, a throw blanket still around my shoulders.

"Where is everyone?" I yawned, plopping down on the couch inside the common room. I closed my eyes, trying to fall back asleep, but someone slapped my cheek to bring me back to Earth.

"Stay awake," Isabelle commanded as she placed a bowl of cereal on my lap, knocking milk all over my jeans. "If we don't show up to this interview, Aaron will track you down and slaughter you in your sleep."

I rolled my eyes, picking up the spoon and shoving some cereal into my mouth. Aaron was a good guy, don't get me wrong; he just annoyed me sometimes to the point where I wanted to strangle him, then bring him back to life, just so I could kill him in a different way. Today was one of those days; I really didn't feel like getting up and going to an interview, considering it was a Sunday.

"You never answered my question," I complained loudly, so Isabelle could hear me over the hair dryer. "Where is everyone else?"

Turning off the machine, Isabelle came into the common room and sat down next to me. "They're already at the station," she answered, combing her hair back with her hands. "_Some_ people want to be on time. Oh, and Mick and Jerome said they'd meet you there as well."

Isabelle glanced at her watch, and her eyes grew to the size of tennis balls. "Fabian! Are you ready?"

"Almost..." I mused, glancing over my body and checking if there were any flaws in my choice of clothing. "Why?"

"Because we literally only have twenty minutes to get to the station before the interview starts! What are you stalling for? Go, go, go!" she pushed me into my room to make myself look more presentable than before. With only fifteen minutes to spare, we sprinted to the car and sped towards the station.

When we were cruising down the highway, Isabelle sighed with relief. "We're going to make it," she breathed, checking me over one last time for confirmation. "Eh," was all she said in response to her scan.

I opened my book and got lost in it; living in a world other than one where Isabelle was screaming at me to get ready for an interview I didn't even want to give. I loved what I did more than anything else in the world, but sometimes all I wanted was some time to myself.

"All right," Isabelle began, clapping her hands together. She didn't move her gaze from the road as she asked me, "Why did you ask me to evacuate the house with everyone a few days ago? No lies, please, Fabian."

I pursed my lips, trying to think of a way to word it. I couldn't just come out and say it...Isabelle would think I'm lying...or she'd tell Mum...

"If I tell you," I said, cautiously, "You have to promise me that you will tell _no one_."

"Why, is it really that bad?" she chuckled, her eyes glued to the road in front of her. At least she wasn't seeing how red my face was turning.

"Well...yeah, it kind of it is," I admitted, scratching the back of my neck. I never wanted anyone to know, and now five people knew: Mick, Jerome, Alfie, Chloe, and Isabelle would as soon as I stopped being a coward. "Well, you see...when I was sixteen...I, well, um..."

"Spit it out, kid!"

"When I was sixteen, I met someone in a coffee shop. She was an amazing person, and I wanted to know more about her. I asked her to come home with me, and, well...something happened."

Isabelle cocked an eyebrow.

_Fuck it. I'll just spit it out._ "I got a fifteen-year-old girl pregnant in the summer of 2009."

Isabelle was so shocked she almost slammed her head into the steering wheel. She didn't say anything until we were stopped at the traffic light; and then all she did was look at me with an appalled look. "Oh my God, Fabian. OH MY GOD! You bastard! You had the balls to get a girl pregnant at _fifteen_? Wait, no, don't tell me. _Don't tell me_. You're a father?!"

"Yes," was my answer to all of her questions. "I had the balls to get a poor fifteen-year-old pregnant. I know that I'm a bastard. I have addressed that. I'm a father...I'm a dad."

"Fabian," Isabelle breathed, not daring to look at me. She was shaking her head and muttering to herself, but I couldn't catch any of the words. I could tell she was having a hard time letting the information sink in; I understood, of course. I could still remember how I felt when I read Nina's name on the photograph all those weeks ago.

"I know," I said guiltily, scratching the back of my head. I didn't see the need to continue the conversation, so I remained silent, but Isabelle thought differently.

She mumbled, "Does Mum know?" and I shook my head in response to her question. She threw her head back in exasperation, and I knew I was in deep trouble. "Mum doesn't know she's a grandmother? You're in for it now, kiddo...wait, if my brother is a dad, does that mean...I'm an aunt? I have a niece?"

"Yeah, I guess you do."

"Cool!" she cheered, almost as if she had completely forgot about how distressed she was two seconds ago. "What's my niece's name?"

"Emma," I answered, still not used to saying the name myself. I had probably said the name 'Emma' about a million times, but I'd never get used to saying it. Emma was my daughter.

Isabelle smiled, muttering to herself, "Aunt Isabelle. I could get used to that."

**xXx**

Eventually, we arrived at the station, sprinting inside the building. When Rosie, one of my older sisters, caught my eye, she rushed me into the room where the person was supposed to interview me. In the corner of the room, nine people were standing there: my mother, my father, Rosie, Chloe, Olivia, Isabelle, Aaron (my manager), Jerome, Mick, and Amber. The sight of my friends and family gave me more confidence, but it also made me more nervous than I was before.

With only twenty seconds to spare, I sat down in the chair, leaning back, trying to catch my breath. The man in the other chair touched my arm, trying to bring my attention back to Earth and the interview at hand. He handed me the microphone, counted down from five, and the interview began.

"Hello, and welcome to Steve's Dip with the one and only Steve Dutton!" the man announced into the microphone, so I presumed his name was Steve. He continued, "We're here today with Fabian Rutter, one of the most popular and well-known singers of this year! So tell me, Fabian, how's fame like for you?"

I didn't expect a question to come so quickly, so I was caught off guard for a minute. Unfortunately, though, Aaron had prepped me for interviews; I'd only given a few in my entire career. I knew when to answer and how to answer.

"Fame is okay," I answered the interviewer (Steve's) question. A smile from Aaron told me that I was doing my job correctly. "I like it. It's what I always dreamed of. And now that I have it...I love it."

"Well, that's great, Fabian," Steve smiled, reaching over to pat me on the shoulders. The movement was awkward between us both, and we both knew that, so he released his grip and continued talking. "Do you think you have some competition with One Direction, there, mate? I mean...they're known worldwide and you're still in the Liverpool area!"

"Yes, I know," I answered nonchalantly, as if the question didn't faze me at all; which, in all honesty, it didn't. "But it's not like I'm going to be jealous. Sure, my youngest sister may love them, even though she tries to act like she doesn't-" I caught Olivia's gaze from the other side of the room, and she giggled. I continued, "but I'm my own person. I have an amazing band, amazing songs to sing, and an amazing cast of family and friends. I love what I do and I love my life right now. Sure, maybe I'm working on going worldwide, but right now, if I'm limited to the Liverpool area, that's what it is and I'm thankful for everything."

From the corner of my eye, I could see my mum hold her hand to her heart. Aaron gave me a thumbs up, and I knew I was saying the right thing. Steve said something else, but I wasn't listening very intently. I figured he was just saying something to the audience that was listening (Well, if there _actually was_ an audience.), so it wasn't necessary that I listen.

I wasn't lying about what I said; sure, One Direction, The Beatles, and so many other artists from Britain were more popular than Fabian Rutter, but I didn't care. I had fans, and that was all that mattered to me. According to Aaron, I was 'climbing the charts and my popularity was growing by the day'. Soon enough, more people would know the name Fabian Rutter.

I was already sure there was one person who would always know that name, even if she didn't want to.

"Well, we know that there are already plenty of people who love you, Fabian," Steve told me, awkwardly placing his hand on my shoulder. He removed it quickly, trying to diminish the awkwardness by saying, "Well, then. Tell the people listening: How do you spend your day when you're not working?"

"How do I spend my day?" I asked, repeating his question. "Well...I usually hang out with my friends, Jerome and Mick. This other guy, Alfie, comes in sometimes, but I don't see him all that often. He may be annoying, but he's a good kid. And there's Amber, who's probably the most obsessed fangirl anyone will ever meet, and she's eighteen. She's convinced that she's going to marry David Beckham, yet she still has extreme respect for Victoria Beckham. As Amber would like to say: WWVBD. What Would Victoria Beckham do?

"I like to hang out with my friends, take a ride or two, you know. Just hang out like a normal nineteen-year-old man would do. Fame can be exhausting, but it doesn't take away my love that I have towards my friends."

Aaron winked; yet another signal that I was doing my job correctly. Amber had her face buried in her hands, but when she lifted her head, she was laughing. Mick was smirking, and all of my sisters were pretending to gag.

"I have a few more questions for you, Fabian, so don't think you're leaving now!" Steve smiled, pushing me back down in my seat in front of the microphone. I wasn't planning on leaving; I actually just wanted to check what the time was.

"Ask away," I told the interviewer, ready to answer any question that was thrown at me. If Nina could answer my question about her being a virgin so easily, I could answer questions about my fame.

"How did you become a singer slash song-writer?" he asked, and my eyes widened.

"Well, that's actually a long story," I breathed, trying to think of a different way to word it than it really was. I couldn't say the real story while I was on the air; I'd most likely get slaughtered in my sleep from the person who gave me the courage to do it. "Well, I was in a performing arts school for a while, but I was struggling with writing a song...but many people pushed me into finishing it, and I gave it to a producer, and they loved it. They signed me onto their record deal after hearing me sing, and now here I am, on this radio broadcast with you!"

That was the truth. Not the whole truth; but the truth.

"Ah, very good, very good," he murmured, almost as if he was trying to remember my answer for later. "Yes," Steve said, dragging the_ e._ "All right, another question for the eager fans out there: your team. What do you think about everyone on it?"

I explained, even though it probably took up like half of our time. I told Steve about the guitarist, James; the dummer, Matthew; and other instrumentalists in my band, including Colin, Marcus, Zach, and Christopher. Then came Aaron, which I probably scared half the audience away with, because I stated what I wanted to do to him (Strangle him, then bring him back to life, just so I could kill him in a different way).

There were more questions, even though I barely remember them. But there was one question that stuck in my head; it was the last question Steve asked before the interview ended.

"Now, tell me, Fabian," he began, tapping his pencil on the desk. "I'm sure there are plenty of girls that want to be your girlfriend...are you single? Or are you taken, a handsome man like you?"

Shit.

_Shit._

I couldn't just come out and say that I got a fifteen-year-old girl pregnant when I was sixteen, and now we're trying to make things work as a family. That wouldn't work. Rumors would start about me and I'd be shunned from everyone I'd ever know. I'd be on the cover of magazines everywhere; I could already see the headlines.

In a panic, I looked to Aaron for help. He met my eyes and formed three letters with his fingers: _L. I. E._

_LIE__._

He wanted me to make up a lie. To say that yes, I was happy and single, living a carefree life with my friends, without a thought about a girl in the world.

As much as I wanted to do that, I couldn't. I was a father now; I had to take responsibility. I wasn't just going to come out and say it, of course; but I couldn't lie completely.

My sisters were motioning for me to lie too; Chloe and Isabelle were the ones that were doing it the most. Mum and Dad looked confused, but I couldn't blame them. Even with my sisters and Aaron telling me to stretch the truth, I had to take responsibility.

"Well...you see, I was reunited with an old friend of mine a few weeks ago," I stated, scratching the back of my head. "We've been talking by email since then. I haven't seen her in a while, so it's nice to talk to her. So...I don't even know where we're going yet, but I hope it's a positive climb instead of negative."

Steve smiled, and he said something else, but I was too obsessed with watching Isabelle and Chloe hold their arms up in exasperation and argue with each other. Soon enough, Steve ended the interview, and I was driving home with my sisters.

The ride home was a blur of yells and screams from Isabelle and Chloe. Rosie and Olivia were confused about why the two were screaming at me, but I ignored them. I was thinking about all that happened; how I answered, and what people would say. I knew that I couldn't say the whole truth; I knew that I would be called out for it, and I couldn't let that happen to Nina also. She was only seventeen, and she was struggling with a two-year-old daughter; she didn't need more shit to deal with.

When Isabelle pulled up the long road to the house, I jumped out of the car and ran up the stairs to my room. I grabbed my laptop from under the bed and started to type a message to Nina; she responded rather quickly.

**Fabian Rutter: Hey there. Did you listen to my radio broadcast today? Oh, wait; you're Nina Martin, the obsessed fan.  
Nina Martin: You learn quickly.  
Fabian Rutter: Do you think I embarrassed myself too badly?  
Nina Martin: Nah - you handled it well. I don't think I learned anything new about you, though.  
Fabian Rutter: Thanks, I guess...I'm just lucky that Aaron didn't give me a Confidence Lesson before the interview though...  
Nina Martin: "Confidence Lesson"?  
Fabian Rutter: Yeah; my manager has given me these things called "Confidence Lessons" ever since 2010, when I was first starting out as an artist. I was really shy back then, so Aaron, being the annoying man he is, decided to intervene by trying to make me more confident. I'm supposed to have one tomorrow. Fun.  
Nina Martin: Oh my God haha. I have to tell someone; that's priceless.  
Fabian Rutter: You sound like Jerome.  
Nina Martin: Ah, Jerome would be your friend.  
Fabian Rutter: Nina Martin, if you're stalking me, please retreat from my window. Thank you.  
Nina Martin: By the way, you're out of milk.  
Fabian Rutter: Haha, you're so funny. Hey...I gotta go. I'll talk to you later.  
Nina Martin: Okay. Tell me when you're free.  
**

After that, I logged off and closed the laptop. I wouldn't have said goodbye if I didn't want to; I heard the door slam and I knew that Mick, Jerome, and Amber were here; with my luck, Alfie would be here, too.

I jumped down the stairs and Mick bro-hugged me. I hadn't seen him in a week, other than when I glimpsed him throughout the interview. Jerome and I linked hands; he may back-stab me a lot, but he was still my friend. Amber was different, though; she hugged me with all her might, and I hugged back. Amber was really sweet, and I loved hanging out with her, even though I never saw her anymore.

Alfie was there, just as I expected. We said an awkward hello, but it was quickly diminished as I ushered everyone into the den. My sisters and my parents were seated in the common room, so our group had the room to ourselves.

"Okay," Jerome started, clapping his hands together. "Raise your hand if you know Fabian's secret."

Three out of the four people raised their hands; Jerome, Mick, and Alfie. Amber was the only one left; she was looking from one person to the other, trying to decipher their actions. She moved closer to me on the couch and whispered in my ear: "What's your secret?"

Chuckling, Alfie ripped a piece of paper from my song notebook and wrote something on it. After he handed it to Amber, she took five seconds to read it, and she gasped. "Fabian!" she breathed, and I knew I was in for a scolding. "You're a fath-"

"Shh!" I scolded, placing a finger on Amber's lips. I whispered, "I don't want Mum or Dad to know. God, Dad would probably disown me if he knew..."

"Wow," she mumbled, looking at me with her eyes the size of tennis balls. "I can't believe that you're a father...do you have a son or a daughter?"

"A daughter," I answered, and I was surprised that Amber didn't squeal. She loved kids; little girls in general. Now that she knew I had a daughter, she'd probably pester me until I caved and said she could see her.

Much to my surprise, all Amber asked me was, "What's her name?"

I smiled. "Emma."

And for the rest of the day, we all hung out together. Alfie told his ideas about how the "asteroid" that killed the dinosaurs was really a UFO and we're all aliens; Jerome was ignoring us by playing a game on his handheld; Amber wouldn't stop asking me questions; and Mick was kicking a football up into the air. None of us were bothered by the silence; we liked each others company.

It was noon. What I didn't know was that the mother of my child was on the edge of a breakdown, all because I was downstairs hanging out with my friends; therefore unable to answer her messages.

* * *

**A/N - Well...I guess you could call that a cliffhanger. I have no talent for writing cliffies; if you want a good cliffhanger, go consult Rick Riordan. I swear, that man sits in his chair thinking of ways to torture us while stroking his invisible beard. I'm warning you; never, EVER read his books. His writing is phenomenal and his stories are too; the only bad thing about his books are the FUCKING CLIFFHANGERS. OH MY GODS. HE'S RUINING MY LIFE.**

**Okay, so rant over. The next chapter, "The Bully" will be up next week, May 3rd. It's in Nina's POV, and also contains a little Neddie friendship! c: (As you can see, I'm obsessed with Neddie.) Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope you have a sparkling day!~  
~Julianna**


	8. The Bully

**A/N - If I don't finish this chapter before Thursday, May 2nd, I give you all full permission to hit me.**

**...I realize that I made a mistake last chapter. I said it was Sunday, September 16th - just pretend I said Monday, September 17th. Hey; I'm human. I make mistakes. So, um, just pretend that it wasn't a Sunday and that Julianna made a stupid mistake. c: (Spell Check is saying I spelt my name wrong. Sorry, honey, I think I spelt it right.)**

**Well, the couples in this story include: Fabian/Nina (obviously), Jerome/Mara, and some slight Alfie/Amber, Patricia/Eddie, and even less Joy/Mick. How, you are wondering, are the people on Team Fabian going to meet the others on Team Nina? Well, you'll have to wait a few chapters to see... ;) I have this whole story planned out, from chapter 1 to the final chapter, 26. I decided that there won't be an epilogue, so the final finishing date is going to be Friday, September 6th, 2013 - but there might be a two week break in the summer, since I'm going to a sleepaway camp, but I'm going to try to prewrite those chapters and I'll try to update from my phone - anyhow, so far, the date I have for the last chapter is 9/6/13. **

**After Lost & Found, however, I'm going to be publishing a new Peddie multichap that should be up by September 22nd, 2013. That will have 19 chapters (I'm big on planning), and that will end in late January 2014. Just some extra info, so if you like Peddie, it's going to be another AU, but this time all Peddie centric. c:**

******DISCLAIMER: Well, I changed my name to Nickelodeon, but I still don't own House of Anubis. I haven't heard from Jerome in two weeks, so I presume he's either dead, taken captive by a band of gypsies, or under arrest and is in trial right now. Hopefully, he's got the papers. **

* * *

**Nina  
Chapter 8: "The Bully"**

"Wake up..."

"Shut up, Eddie, I'm trying to sleep."

"Uncle Eddie's not here, mommy..."

I opened my eyes to find my two-year-old daughter shaking my side at the foot of my bed. I smiled, reached over to pick her small body up and placed her on the other side of my twin bed. "No, Emma, Uncle Eddie isn't here," I told her, leaning back against the headboard. I muttered to myself, "Thank God."

"Grandma sent me!" Emma exclaimed, throwing her small hands up into the air. My Gran was actually Emma's great-grandmother, but Gran didn't want a reminder of how old she was getting, so Emma calls her "Gran" along with me.

I sighed, already knowing what time it was. It seemed like an eternity ago when school started, but it was only thirteen days ago. It hasn't even been two weeks. I sucked in a deep breath of air, placed Emma back on the carpeted floor, and held her hand as we descended the stairs. Our house wasn't huge, considering only three people lived in it.

Gran came out of the kitchen holding two bowls filled with milk. She gave one to the cat, Luna, who I swear was a robot sent from the future to ruin my life, and set one down on the table, in my seat. I usually made myself breakfast, but since I was a late riser today, Gran had the opportunity to make breakfast for the first time in months.

I sent Emma into the den to play with the cat, and started to quickly suck down the cereal. I would have to catch the bus in a few minutes, and my hair still wasn't brushed, my clothes weren't on, and my teeth still smelled like I'd been chewing on horse dung.

After the milk was all sucked down, I bounded up the stairs to pick out a t-shirt and jeans. I brushed my teeth for two minutes precisely, gathered my school bags, and ran out for the bus stop, the school bag bouncing along behind me.

Panting, I arrived at the bus stop, and Mara steadied me. She scolded me for running that far, but I ignored her and looked around the corner for the bus, which was about to arrive at its destination. Mara pulled a book out of her bag, and I saw that it was _Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone_.

"Mara, I think you've read that book about a bajillion times," I laughed, carefully removing the book from her grasp. Mara gasped, trying to reach for it, but I stuffed it into my own bag.

She frowned, faced me, and announced, "I've only read it thirteen times, for your information."

I stiffled a laugh, but found I could ask her, "How many times have you read the entire series?"

I heard her mutter, "Nine..." But before she could say anymore, Eddie ran up from his house to the group. Other than Eddie, Mara, and myself, there were only two other people: Melanie and Kyle, who were twins who lived down the block. I didn't talk to them all that much, since I spend most of my time with Mara and Eddie. I told the blonde about how Mara was reading Harry Potter again, and he commented with, "God, Mara, isn't this like the bazillionth time you've read it?"

"_Ninth_!"

**xXx**

We had to say our farewells once the bus pulled up to Callina Academy, but we saw each other again at lunchtime. Mara, being the perfectionist she is, showed up early; I walked into the cafeteria fifteen seconds before the bell rang; but Eddie was nowhere to be seen, even two minutes after the period started.

Mara sucked in a long breath of air before taking her sandwich out of the bag and taking a large bite of peanut butter. She looked at me before she said, "Have you done anything about Fabian?"

I shook my head no, but Mara tilted her head to the side. She was smarter than me; she could see right through my lies. Instead of saying the truth, I shrugged and indulged myself in the soup sitting in the soup sitting in front of me.

"Nina..." Mara muttered, but I ignored her. I didn't want to talk about my situation with Fabian to her; she wouldn't understand. It was all so complicated; I knew that my relationship with Fabian would never be anything more than parents who were separated. He was a famous singer, living out his dream without a care in the world for relationships, and I was a struggling high school student. I would ruin his image and reputation.

When I saw Mara turn back to the first Harry Potter book, I sighed and grabbed my MP3 player out of my bag. My soup was taking an eternity to cool down, so I decided to leave it be while I listened to some music - Eddie was still hesitant to show his face for reasons unknown. The first song that came up on Shuffle was Taylor Swift's song, Untouchable._  
_

_"Untouchable like a distant diamond sky; I'm reaching out and I just can't tell you why; I'm caught up in you...I'm caught up in you."_

I couldn't tell you how many times I listened to that song throughout my pregnancy and Emma's life. It explained my life so well; wanting to have someone I could never, _ever_ have. No one in the world would believe me if I said that Emma was the daughter of a famous singer. They'd tell me I was just looking for attention, while in reality it would be the truth.

Mara and Eddie still believed that I hadn't done anything about Fabian since I figured out he was the father of my child. I always wanted to do something; like approach him at a signing or something, and when he saw my face, he would know who I was; but I could never gain the courage to do so. I let Fabian slip through my fingertips countless times, until one day I had to let him know what he did, and what the effects were. He couldn't live without knowing he had a daughter forever.

_"Untouchable, burning brighter than the sun; and when you're close, I feel like coming undone._

_"In the middle of the night, when I'm in this dream, it's like a million little stars spelling out your name. You gotta, come on, come on...say that we'll be together. Come on, come on, little taste of heaven._

_"It's half full, and I won't wait here all day. I know you're saying that you'd be here anyway. But you're untouchable, burning brighter than the sun; now that you're close, I feel like coming undone."_

"Damn," Mara muttered, closing _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_ and placing it down on the lunch table.

I laughed, cocking an eyebrow at her surprise. "What?" I questioned, "Were you not expecting Snape to be such a douchebag to Harry?"

She narrowed her eyes in resentment towards me, but she brushed it off quickly and responded with, "No. Our lunch break is almost over and Eddie hasn't shown his face once. He loves food. You know his attraction towards hogies..." Mara released a shiver, probably remembering the name Eddie was eating his hogie over Mara's lap and got meat all over her dress. "Unless he's playing a game of hide and seek, I don't know where he could be."

"Dunno," was my response, shoving another spoonful of soup into my mouth and trying to ignore how my tongue felt like it was being sent to the depths of hell. I scanned the cafeteria quickly, and Mara was right: Eddie was nowhere to be found. I pushed myself out of my chair and asked for a pass - he might have been stuck in class or something.

I turned the corner, only to find Eddie sitting on the ground, liplocked with someone. I couldn't see their face correctly, but once I asked, "Eddie?" I saw who it really was.

Eddie was snogging Patricia Williamson, the girl who didn't care about anyone in the world except for Joy Mercer. She was cruel, not only to me, but to Mara and Eddie, and everyone else in the school. She was cruel and selfish, not caring that I took offense to the "Sophomore Slut" jokes she'd been making for three years straight.

Patricia had been cruel to Eddie as well. What was this bullshit - why was he kissing her in secret? I would've bet that Patricia pressured him into it. Eddie and Patricia never had any contact at all, apart from when she targeted someone out in the hallway. In fact, I distinctly remembered Eddie telling me that he despised Patricia Williamson from the first day he met her.

I was too shocked to say anything. Eddie removed his mouth from Patricia's, and gaped when he saw me standing there. His hazel eyes stared into my green ones, and I saw an apology lurking in them. He had an explanation, but I didn't want to stick around to hear it. He started to stand up, much to Patricia's annoyance, but he stood up and held his hands up in surrender.

I didn't know what to feel. I felt like my emotions were seated on a roller coaster that had multiple loops - at first I was shocked, then I was upset, then angry, confused, annoyed, and betrayed. It was always Mara, Eddie, and Nina. Just the three of us, living the high school life together. We depended on each other for multiple things, like how he was Emma's babysitter, or how I helped him clean his room whenever he was too lazy to do it.

I walked back into the cafeteria, hearing Patricia talk to him, and sat back in my seat across from Mara.

She must have asked me what was wrong, but I ignored her as I focused my attention on a crack in the wall. I was trying to think of anything other than what I just saw. I refused to believe that Eddie was in a secret relationship with Patricia Williamson - it just didn't add up. He didn't speak of her at all when we were alone; and we were alone_ a lot_. After all, he was basically Emma's uncle.

I took in a deep breath of air and tried to forget. Even if he was - I shuddered at the thought of it - dating Patricia, he was still my best friend. I still would have to depend on him for everything. He was my anchor, and I still needed him.

"Earth to Nina?" Mara cried, waving her hand in front of my face. She had obviously tried to catch my attention multiple times, but I was so caught up in the thought of Eddie snogging Patricia that I had completely ignored my other best friend. I apologized, and promptly started to tell her about what I just saw.

Mara's emotional range changed the same way mine did - like we were seated in the front row of a roller coaster, ready to approach the loop. Mara wore an expression of confusion when Patricia walked back into the cafeteria. I tried to ignore her as she sent me a glare, before sitting down in the table behind me, where Joy was already seated. Eddie never came back in.

"I don't understand," I finished, setting my hands on the table. Mara shrugged, obviously having no idea how to comfort me. Eddie always claimed that 'my emotional range during pregnancy never wore off' and I was still the emotional bitch I was from August 2009 to May 2010.

With Eddie still M.I.A, Mara and I struck up a conversation about music. Surprisingly, Mara brought up Fabian Rutter; she knew that I didn't like thinking about him most of the time. But what a lot of people didn't know is that Mara had actually always been a fan of Fabian's music from the start; she tries to play it down every time I remind her, but I knew she still had a crush on him. I didn't really care; Eddie's little sister had a better chance of getting Fabian for themselves than Mara or I did.

Our conversation about Fabian continued, and I had to resist the urge to tell Mara that I had been IMing the famous singer since August 7th. Mara would either think I was lying or aching for attention. I kept the subject quiet, but I couldn't do so when none other than Joy Mercer and Patricia Williamson walked over to our table.

"Joy dragged me over here," Patricia commented nonchalantly, like she was dreading being in the presence of the one and only Nina Martin.

I cocked an eyebrow at Joy, and her response was, "Look, I heard you two talking about Fabian Rutter. I know a lot of people think I'm 'obsessed' with him just because he's 'good looking', but I'm not. He's my role model, and I look up to him. He himself and his music means everything to me. And I just wanted to say that I'm sorry if I ever offended you because of how much I love him."

"I understand," I sympathized. Joy wasn't the only one who looked up to him; though I did so in a slightly different way. "He's a great person inside and out, right?"

Joy nodded, then left to go to her table. I thought that was a nice thing to do; apologizing for something stupid. Taking the blame that she was responsible. Unfortunately, Patricia stayed behind to have a little chat with me.

"I'm not saying I like him," Patricia denied, still on the topic of Fabian. "But what Joy said was true. I've never seen a person so affected by Fabian's music than her. You are an American git who thinks she has the right to like everything British, just because we have cool accents and attractive men. God, why did you even come to the UK in the first place? How about you just skeedadle on home to the United States and eat something."

I took a deep breath, trying to stop myself from strangling the redhead. Patricia had a nerve to pick with me ever since I moved here, and I wasn't sure why. Patricia would never tell me.

"I'm pretty sure Joy doesn't know anything about him," I stated simply, turning back to Mara. I didn't want to fight anymore than she did, and Mara covered her eyes when the teacher raised their voice to be heard over the loudspeakers.

Unfortunately for me and everyone else sitting around her, Patricia wasn't done talking with me. "Oh, and you do? How about you go back home to your daughter, you whore."

**xXx**

That was only the middle of the day when it happened.

I'd been holding myself back from doing anything rash all day. There were eight periods in the school day, and our lunch period was in the sixth. What Patricia said was lingering in my mind all day, and I couldn't get it out of my mind, even when I ran home and opened my laptop.

**Hey, it's me. Are you there?**

I sent the message to Fabian. Usually, he responded rather quickly, but this time there was no written reply. I waited a few minutes, but with no response back, I sent another message.

**Fabian, I really need to talk to you. **

I set the laptop down on my bed and walked over to Emma's crib, where she was taking an afternoon nap. Patricia called me a whore for having a daughter at sixteen - I'd been called many things, but the school had never resorted to "Whore". It hit me harder than I'd have thought. Was Emma going to have to grow up in shame, knowing that her mother gave birth to her when she was sixteen?**  
**

I was shaking as I walked back to the laptop. I felt like crying, but I knew that tears wouldn't help anything. My eyes were stinging as I listened to Emma's short breathing and waited for her father to reply. It must have been a good fifteen minutes with no response when I typed another message.

**Are you out there? Look, I need someone to talk to. I don't know if you're there or not, but I need to talk to you.**

Another ten minutes = no reply.

**Someone called me a whore in school. Do you think I'm a whore? Did I make a mistake with you in the first place? Is that what I am to you: a mistake?**

With no response from Fabian, knowing that he had emails sent to his phone as well, the tears started to fall. He was either ignoring me, or dead. Neither of the options were good. I was openly crying in my bedroom when I sent him the fifth message.

**Fabian, please answer! I don't know where you are, but I need you to answer me. I need to talk to you. Please! **

A tear slid down my face when the text underneath said "Unread". I needed to talk to the father of my child, and Fabian apparently fell off the face of the Earth. I covered my face with my hands in shame, trying not to think of the fact that I was actually crying.

I never cried. Not once. At least, not until Emma was born. During the pregnancy, I was in shock from the fact that I had actually gotten pregnant form that boy. I didn't even know his name; I had no way of finding him. I was too in shock to do anything; it wasn't until after May 25th, 2010, that I actually started crying.

Neither Gran, Mara, or Eddie knew how to comfort me. That boy, with the gorgeous blue eyes, wasn't there to support me and his child. I was left alone with the burden of a newborn daughter, with no other side to support her. I was alone, and I knew that. I wasn't open to anyone in school, except for Mara or Eddie, but even though they were in my house pretty much 24/7 after Emma was born, I still felt alone.

I felt the same way I did two years ago right now. Fabian always carried his phone around with him ("For safety reasons", he explained), so why wasn't he responding? The messages were sent, but he wasn't replying.

**Please, Fabian.**

No response.

**I need you right now. Please talk to me.**

Still no response.

**Please respond.**

I was already crying, but by now I could be compared with a water park. I was pretty sure my face was completely drenched in tears, because talking to someone who wouldn't talk back was so emotionally exhausting.

In the past month and a half, I had talked to Fabian everyday. We related on so many things, and grew closer than anyone could have ever imagined. He begged me for my phone number every day, but I was still reluctant to give it to him. I didn't want to feel like we were moving too fast; I had spent three years without Fabian at my side. If we were tore away from me, I'd feel like I gave in too quickly.

I was still suspicious, if I was being honest. Fabian was a famous and well-known singer around Liverpool and the rest of the UK. So many people knew who he was. After all, he could go on tour for a new album and leave Emma and I alone for more than a year. I didn't want to give him my phone number, because we'd be more attached. And I didn't want to grow attached.

I honestly did want to work everything out; just in a period of time. Taking baby steps. Fabian and I were friends as of September 17th, 2012, but nothing more. No one would believe me if I even claimed it was something more than friends. If we were "best friends" I'd probably get trashed by the media.

That was another thing I was worried about: the media. Those old men with cameras were so ridiculous and pathetic is was unbelievable. If I was seen in public with Fabian, even having the smallest hint of a smile on my face, media would take that the wrong way and make it out so it was something it wasn't. It would look bad on Fabian, and I would have to live with knowing I messed up his life.

I felt so lonely in the nine months I was pregnant with Emma. With no way to contact the boy I had met in the coffee shop, and Gran trying to work to support me and the upcoming infant, I was alone most of the time. Gran pulled me out of school after the delivery for a while, and rumors spread like wildfire. When I returned to the Academy, I was unwelcomed. Called names. Disrespected. All because I'd met an amazing boy in a coffee shop one night.

It was only when Mara told me about a new singer when I learned who Emma's father was. I looked him up, and sure enough: he was _him_, the boy whom I had sex with when I was fifteen. I hadn't seen his face in a year, heard his voice in a year, or talked to him in a year, just because he'd lived up to his name as "Mystery Boy" and never bothered to tell me his first name. Even the first name would have made my pregnancy bearable.

I had finally worked up the courage to send him a photo of Emma on August 6th. Fabian received the letter on August 7th, and that was the day we reunited and started our new relationship. I wasn't even sure where we were going, but according to Fabian in his latest interview, "it was a positive climb."

It felt so good to be around him again. To know that I was talking to the mother of his child...I felt whole. It killed me every time I had to look into Emma's eyes and see the same color I saw when I met him in the coffee shop . . . they were the same exact color.

_"What are you writing?" I inquired, attempting to keep the conversation going._

_"Song lyrics."_

_I realized that the boy sitting across from me definitely wasn't a people-person like me. He liked to keep to himself, so I knew he wouldn't give me more detail about the song lyrics he just told me about. "Tell me about them," I said. "What's the song about?"_

_He licked his lips, hesitating about telling me. "I'm not sure myself yet. I'm just trying to write a song."_

_His blue eyes were so beautiful. They weren't like the ocean, or the sky, but they were a shade of blue that only belonged to him. It was the Mystery Boy's blue, and it was the most beautiful shade of blue I had ever seen._

My phone rang in my pocket, bringing me back to Earth; I held it up, and the Caller ID read _Eddie_. I wanted to talk to him, to explain and work things out, but now wasn't the time. The person I wanted to talk to right now was Fabian, but he wasn't answering.

I presumed Eddie took the declination of his call the wrong way, because two minutes after that, he came slamming into my house, running up the stairs and enveloping me in a hug. As confused, shocked, and hurt as I was, I hugged back.

I wanted to have a real family hug, with my daughter of the father of said daughter, but if Eddie was the closest thing I had to father, he would have to do.

* * *

**A/N - Yeah, kind of a filler chapter, so it was kind of boring. But next week, things will heat up, I promise! The story will reach its climax at the end of chapter 13, so that's coming up...**

**As you can obviously tell, I begin every chapter with "The". Since I have everything about this story planned out, I figured I'd release the names of every upcoming chapter; you'll have to figure out what they mean for yourself!**

**So, starting from 9) The Extension, 10) The Surprise, 11) The Concert, 12) The Account, 13) The Park, 14) The Denial, 15) The Threat, 16) The Note, 17) The Playdate, 18) The Outing, 19) The Rumor, 20) The Dinner, 21) The Reveal, 22) The Kiss, 23) The Confession, 24) The Flashback, 25) The Beginning, & 26) The Goodbye. How about telling me which chapter you're most looking forward to?**

**...I also published my first original work on FictionPress and I'm crying. I got a review (No, not a flame), but I'm literally too scared to see what it says. Like, oh my god, if I'm too scared to see a review from my own work, I need to get a life.**

**Okaaay! Next chapter will be up on May 10th, and the title is a little above this sentence! I hope you enjoyed this boring filler chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day~**

**~Julianna**


	9. The Extension

**A/N** - When you read this sentence, I will either be 1) in New Jersey having the time of my life at Great Adventure or 2) Bored on the car ride to Buffalo to watch my 21-year-old brother graduate college. Let's pray that I'm still at 1.

NEW INFO: I have photographs/visuals up on my profile for this story. i.e. what Emma looks like, the inside of Fabian's house, etc. The link is under the "Extras" category if you scroll down on my profile to view what I have on "Lost & Found", you should find the link down there, or if you want to see the album now, it's imgur/ a / VJ9qw#0. Without the spaces, and add a .com on imgur, of course.

Usually, in Don't Be Afraid, I make my Author's Notes about a million miles long, but I don't have anything good to say today. Well, on to the story, I suppose?

DISCLAIMER: Since the name change didn't work, my name is now officially Julianna again. The security in Orlando wasn't happy with me when I said that I owned them. I was forced to say that no, I do not own House of Anubis. I learned the other day that Jerome is in Transylvania with the papers - I'm taking a flight there tomorrow. By May 20th, I shall own House of Anubis!

* * *

**Fabian Rutter: ...is it bad that I don't know what today's date is?  
Nina Martin: Considering the fact that you're nineteen and it's fifteen hours into the day, yes.  
Fabian Rutter: Oops. Aaron kept me up all night. "You have a concert soon, Fabian!" "Make sure your teeth are brushed, Fabian!" He's driving me insane.  
Nina Martin: I would trade Eddie for Aaron any day.  
Fabian Rutter: And who would Eddie be?  
Nina Martin: *That* is none of your business.  
Fabian Rutter: I am presuming he is your friend.  
Nin****a Martin: I am neither confirming nor denying that.  
****Fabian Rutter: You still never answered my question.  
****Nina Martin: And that would be?****  
****Fabian Rutter: What's today's date?  
****Nina Martin: Today is Saturday, October 6th, 2012.  
****Fabian Rutter: Nina, we have been talking by email for more than 2 months and you still refuse to give me your phone number. Why?  
****Nina Martin: Oh, no reason.  
****Fabian Rutter: There has to be a reason. And I'm being serious. My friends find it funny that I only have the mother of my child's email address. They still tease me about it to this day.  
****Nina Martin: I just don't feel comfortable. I don't want to feel like I rushed this. If you, say, get kidnapped by a fan tomorrow and killed, I would feel bad that I felt like it was soon enough to give you my telephone number. Emma lived without a father for 2 years, and now you're back in our lives. I want to take things slow.****  
****Fabian Rutter: I understand. But I promise that you can trust me, and that I won't be leaving anytime soon. But why are you so insistent upon the fact that a fan is going to kidnap and kill me?  
****Nina Martin: I heard it happened to Justin Timberlake once.  
****Fabian Rutter: Well, you shouldn't trust the media. They said I was dating my stylist, Carol, once  
****Nina Martin: What's so bad about that?  
****Fabian Rutter: Carol is 33.  
****Nina Martin: HA! Yeah, I think I know you well enough to know you'd never date someone who's 14 years older than you.  
****Fabian Rutter: And I know YOU well enough to know that you used the calculator on your computer to figure out the age difference between me and my stylist.  
****Nina Martin: Yes, you're right on that. I have a question, though.  
****Fabian Rutter: Ask away.  
****Nina Martin: Since the one-night stand we had in the summer of 2009, have you dated anybody?  
****Fabian Rutter: Yeah. 2 people. Jessica and Grace. They didn't last *that* long though.  
****Nina Ma****rtin: When did you date them?  
****Fabian Rutter: I dated Jessica for a little over a year, from spring 2010 to summer 2011; Grace was something for publicity a few months ago, and I really liked her, but Aaron forced me to break up with her. What about you? Have you dated anybody?  
****Nina Martin: No. I haven't even _kissed_ anyone since I had the one-night stand with you and got pregnant. No one wanted to be around the "Sophomore Slut".  
****Fabian Rutter: I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to gone through with that. Don't you have a couple of friends, though? How come I've never met them?  
****Nina Martin: And how come I've never met YOUR friends?  
****Fabian Rutter: Hm. I don't know...I think Jerome, Mick, Amber and possibly Alfie are free today. You want to come over?  
****Nina Martin: Come over? Your house? Again?  
****Fabian Rutter: Yeah! You've already been over there once and we've been talking for like five hours so you don't have any excuse. You know where my house is. I don't have anything to do now and neither do you, and besides, I do want you to meet my friends! So come over. Now!****  
**

Just like last time, I logged off, leaving the mother of my child confused and without an explananation. I closed the laptop with a snap and jumped down the stairs two at a time. I grabbed my cell phone from the counter and proceeded to call Mick.

He picked up after the third ring. "What's up?" he greeted, his voice muffled, obviously indulging himself in some sort of food.

"Do you have anything to do today?" I asked, silently crossing my fingers for the answer I wanted. Ever since August 7th, I had wanted Nina to meet my friends, but we had never gotten around to it. Even though she felt like we weren't close at all, I felt like we were closer than any other friend of the opposite sex I'd ever had.

"Um..." he drifted, thinking as he chewed the unknown food. I predicted it was a ham sandwich. "No, I don't have anything to do today. I have to watch Liz, but I don't think she'd mind going over your house."

Liz was Mick's thirteen-year-old sister. She was obsessed with One Direction and Ed Sheeran, and would classify herself as "Hipster". Liz and Jerome's younger sister, Poppy, have rivalries from time to time, so I really hoped that Jerome wasn't subjected to watching his sibling like Mick was.

"Yeah, that's fine," I began, trying to work my way around the truth. I didn't know if Mick would want to come if I told him the girl I had sex with three years ago was coming over. "As long as she doesn't mind people she's never seen before. Okay, come over right now."

"Wait, what do you mean by company-" Mick was cut short by me pressing the red button and his voice vanished. I ignored his multiple attempts to call back, and once the blonde eventually gave up, I decided to call Jerome. I could probably tell him who was coming.

"Talk to me," was his greeting, picking up the phone.

"Please tell me you don't have to watch Poppy today," I groaned, plopping down on the couch in the den. My four sisters, my mum, and my dad were all out and about - I decided to stay home, as usual. No one would be home. I still wasn't ready to tell anyone else my secret, and I probably wouldn't be for a long time.

"Nah," Jerome said simply, remaining silent. That was obviously my cue to talk.

"You want to come over today?"

"Why?" he questioned. Jerome questioned everyone's motives, without a valid reason.

"Remember a few months ago, when Alfie drove us to Picton to meet Nina?"

"Nina's the mother of your child, right?" I confirmed his suspicion, and Jerome continued, "Yeah, I remember. Why?"

"Well, I was just talking to her-"

"By email?"

"Yeah," I admitted, and I shushed Jerome when he laughed. "Stop it! Look, I just invited her over my house, and I want her to meet my friends. Which includes you. Besides, you'd get to come over my house and that's a huge plus!"

"And you want me to meet Nina? The girl you had sex with when you were fifteen?"

"Yeah."

"I still can't get over that. You had sex when you were sixteen and I'm TWENTY and I haven't even_ kissed_ anyone yet!"

"Yeah, well, boo hoo. I'll see you in a few minutes."

**xXx**

I called Amber and, unluckily for me, she brought Alfie along.

Alfie was a good kid, but he tended to be annoying three-fourths of the time. Ever since Mick and I told Jerome that we thought his best friend was annoying and didn't want him around, I hadn't seen Alfie's face so much anymore.

When Alfie drove me to Nina's house in Picton on August 7th to reunite with her, him and Amber had been dating at the time. They had an on/off relationship so Amber broke up with him a few weeks later. Their breakup didn't last long, though, because ten days later, they were back on and driving to my house as a couple.

Mick was the first to arrive. The first thing he did was grab a bag of crisps from the cabinet and plopped down on the couch to start eating them. He turned the television onto a football game and began watching the players kick the ball around a court.

Liz, Mick's younger sister, walked in with headphones planted in her ears, listening to a song by the one and only boyband, One Direction. I caught the lyric "You're still the one", before Liz sat down next to her brother and started eating the crisps along with him.

If there was one thing I knew about the Campbell family, it was that they loved to eat. Mick stuffed another crisp in his mouth before facing me and mouthing, _Liz doesn't know about Nina._

I shrugged. It wouldn't matter, anyway. Liz would probably listen to her music the whole time, unless she saw something that perked her interest. If she thought that my friends and I were just babysitting, than Liz would be stationary for the next hour or two.

Amber and Alfie arrived next; Jerome, late as always, pulled into the driveway afterwards. Amber and Alfie sat cuddling on the couch, while I waited for Nina to show up by watching the game with Mick and Jerome.

An hour and a half passed and Nina didn't show her face. Granted, I didn't give her much information, much less a choice, so she might have decided not to come.

Jerome, obviously, was thinking the same thing as he asked, "Mate, where's Nina? You would think she'd be here by now."

"Who's Nina?" Liz asked, pulling a bud out of her ear.

I was saved from explaining by Mick, who decided to talk to her about chores, but that wasn't necessary because one minute later, there was a knock on the door.

I jumped off the couch and ran to the foyer to open the door for Nina. She smiled at me, but the smile vanished when she saw the other five people in the common room.

"It's okay," I assured her, "they're not going to bite. Hey...where's Emma?" I asked, scanning the ground for my daughter. I thought that Nina would come to my house with the toddler, so everyone else could meet her; Amber would have a ball playing with Emma.

"My Gran's watching her," Nina explained, stepping into the foyer. "I didn't think I should bring her. I thought you were kidding at first, but when you didn't respond back, I knew you were serious...and if I was meeting your twenty-year-old friends, I didn't think I should bring two-year-old."

I tried to hide my disappointment, even though Nina had a good reason. I placed my hand around her waist and steered her into the common room, trying to avoid any other room in the house. She wasn't shaking or trembling with fear like I expected her to be; instead, she stood straight and confident with her chin up, ready to face any challenge that was thrown at her. She was as confident and happy-go-lucky as she was three years ago when I met her.

I liked talking with Nina. She had interesting things to say, and even though she tore me away from my work, her conversation kept me captivated, making me want to talk more, which is rare for me.

_"I go to a performing arts academy," I began. "My parents think I have some sort of gift of song-writing, so they're sending me there to, and I quote, 'master my gift'." I was making air quotes to show what they said to me only two months ago._

_"Do you like going there, though? Is that what you want to do?"_

_I hesitated a moment, before realizing that was stupid because I should know the answer right away. "Yes," I said, beginning my statement confidently. "I love song writing. I love it more than anything, but I don't think I want to dedicate my whole day to it, you know? I kind of want to go to college before I think of a career with music."_

_"Ah, so you DO want to do something with music!" she giggled, showing me her beautiful smile. Now, she went back to being the person who asked the questions. "Is the song you were writing for school, or for yourself?"_

_I knew this one. "Myself. I'm writing it for myself. I just don't know what I'm going to do with it yet."_

_"What's it called?"_

_"It's called 'Lost and Found'. It's about two people who meet, but their love is lost and when they meet again, they're trying to rekindle the relationship they once had."_

_"That sounds great!" Nina beamed, and I was happy that she seemed interested in me and my musical career. She continued, "You sound really talented, but you seem so shy. Practice in front of a mirror, because if you overcome your fright, you could really go far, and I want you to achieve your dream."_

"AHA! So this is Nina, eh, mate?" Jerome's voice boomed from the common room, as Nina and I set foot in the wooden room.

Nina's smile never faltered or gave any impression that she was uneasy about meeting my friends. Amber moved away from her boyfriend's grasp and faced Nina; her face lit up, and I knew she wanted to ask Nina a million and one questions about everything.

The silence continued, as I never said anything to Jerome's question. Nina finally broke the silence by asking, rather loudly, "Well? Aren't we going to do introductions?"

"Oh, right!" I fumbled, trying to lead Nina into the common room and manage my posture at the same time. I wanted to make a good impression, but I think Nina already knew by then that as was as shy and geeky as I was when i first met her. But she didn't care. She liked that about me, even.

"Okay, Nina," I began, pointing at Mick. "The boy with the blonde hair who's lazing around eating chips is Mick Campbell, one of my very best friends. He's very athletic and outgoing and has a great sense of humor, but tends to mess things up with his girlfriends a lot. The last girlfriend he had, he messed things up with her so badly that he dressed up as a cheerleader and sang a song to her."

There were some chuckles around the room at this, and Mick just shrugged with a sly grin plastered on his face. I continued and pointed to the next person. "The other boy with blonde hair is Jerome Clarke. He's a prankster, so watch out for him, or you'll end up covered in a pile of goo when you wake up the next morning."

I shivered at the memory, but continued the process. "And the _girl_ with blonde hair is Liz Campbell, Mick's younger sister. She was brought here by force. She probably doesn't even know you're here because she's indulged in a fantasy world where she's married to Zayn Malik and he's serenading her with a song."

"Mara likes One Direction," I heard Nina mutter under her breath, sounding the tiniest bit amused. I presumed Mara was one of her friends, but since Nina wouldn't tell me if she had any friends, I was forced to predict that she had no friends and was the person who sat alone in the bathroom eating lunch because no one wanted to sit with her.

I pointed to the couple who was tangled in each other's arms on the couch. "The girl is Amber and the boy is Alfie. Amber is probably the biggest fangirl you'll ever meet; do not befriend her, because she will not stop talking about David Beckham until your ears bleed." Amber laughed at my comment, but I knew that Amber and Nina would be good friends one day.

"Alfie's a prankster along with Jerome, but if this were Harry Potter, Jerome would be in Slytherin and Alfie would be in Hufflepuff. Alfie's more of a carefree guy with a better sense of humor, but Jerome's the ultimate prankster. I would suggest you stay away from them."

"Well, excuse me," Jerome and Alfie said at the same time. Jerome didn't look the slightest bit ashamed that I had planted him in the cunning house of Hogwarts; instead, he looked flattered. The introductions were complete.

Nina and I shared a long look, and based on the introductions I had just given with my horrible sense of humor, she was happy to be here. W ehared a smile, but our moment was broken by Jerome, who announced, "Well? Aren't you going to tell us about the girl sitting next to you?"

Everyone's eyes were trained on me; even Liz's, who seemed to have broken up with Zayn Malik at the moment to pay attention to me. I didn't know if I could trust Liz with this secret; her brother's best friend got a girl pregnant when she was fifteen, and now they're trying to make things work as teenage parents. Only three people out of the seven people in my family knew my secret; should I trust Liz?

Then what I'd been thinking for the past two months came back: _I'm a father now. I need to take responsibility._

"Well, everyone, this is Nina Martin. When I was sixteen and Nina was fifteen, I met her in a coffee shop. I took her back to the coffee shop, and nine months later, we ended up with a daughter named Emma."

It wasn't much of a surprise; the only person in the room who didn't know was Liz, and even she didn't seem to be taken aback like I expected her to be. She didn't say much, but she was murmuring something to herself and putting the headphones back in her ear. When no one spoke, I announced, "Well, don't be afraid to ask questions."

"Fine," Amber exclaimed happily, moving over from the other side of the room to where Nina and I were sitting. "How's Emma?"

Amber was all up in her business, so Nina was leaning back and away from Amber; but Amber didn't seem to notice or care, as she stayed in that position and waited for an answer. Finally, Nina scooched over next to me and said, "Emma's fine. My grandmother is taking care of her."

"Does she miss her daddy?" Amber cooed, like she was witnessing a couple making up.

"Um...yeah, I guess," Nina said, shrugging her shoulders while eyeing the brown leather couches. "I don't know. There isn't much a two-year-old can say, right? But we talk about Fabian all the time," she stated, like I wasn't in the room with her. I supposed Nina was used to that feeling; I wasn't around for Nina's pregnancy, much less the first two years of my daughter's life.

It saddened me to think about that. There I was, having the time of my life on stage, singing songs and playing the guitar, while Nina had to look after an infant while dealing with the struggles of bullying and money. Her grandmother was getting old, so Nina probably had to look after Emma most of the time. I wasn't there to help her through everything, because she didn't even know my name. How could I have been so stupid as to not tell her my name?

I had missed Emma's first steps. I missed the first time she fed herself, said her first words, or smiled, laughed, read for the first time. I missed so much, and nothing could ever replace the guilt I felt. No one can change the past. I can't go back and change what I did.

I sighed with sadness, but Amber continued to ask questions. "If you were fifteen when you met Fabian, and now it's been three years, are you eighteen? Do the people at your school make fun of you because you're a teen mum?"

"Um, no, actually, I'm seventeen," Nina deadpanned, trying not to look in my friend's eyes. Mick, Jerome, and Alfie couldn't be distracted by Nina, even though the game was raging on the television. "And, well, I mean...no, they don't. Not really."

I could see right through her lies. A few weeks ago, after I had the interview, I turned off messages on my phone and laptop when I was chatting around chatting with everyone, so I didn't know that Nina desperately wanted to talk to me because she'd been called a slut in school. After I saw her attempts to get in touch with me, I'd apologized and we'd talked it out. I'd told her that there was no chance I thought of her as a mistake. Ever since then, we'd been growing closer and closer.

I guess through the past three years, when I wasn't in touch with Nina, she'd thought that I'd thought of her as a mistake. And that wasn't acceptable. I'd never thought of her as a mistake, even when I wasn't thinking about her - which wasn't often. Sure, I hadn't had sex any time after her, but it's not like I thought of that summer night when I met her. She was a one-time thing, I had thought, but karma came back to kick me in the ass.

And that kick _hurt._

Jerome interrupted Amber's question streak with a question of his own, aimed at Nina. "So you're American?" Nina nodded. Jerome aimed his gaze at me. "Mate, you never told us she was American."

I shrugged, trying to slyly move my arm around Nina's shoulders. I figured she'd be comfortable with it; we'd been talking for two months now, and we'd grown closer than anyone talking by IMs could. "What's the big deal? She just used to live 5,000 miles away."

"Dunno," was Jerome's expert explanation. "Just an observation. So, Nina, where in America did you live? How was it?"

She explained about Los Angeles and the huge crowd that lived there. She talked about her school, her old friends, her old house. The questions continued for a while, but they mostly leaned around Emma.

"What does she look like?"

To which she answered, "My hair; light-brownish that cuts a bit after the ears. She has Fabian's eyes, which are blue, but not a sky-blue or an ocean-blue; more of a cement blue. She has an egg-shaped head and a big nose."

"When is her birthday?"

To which she answered, "May 25th, 2010."

There were plenty of other questions, which Nina so gladly answered. It wasn't another two hours until Amber and Nina bid their goodbyes, exchanged email addresses (To which I told Amber, "HA!") and I decided to walk Nina out to her car.

She was laughing as we walked down the path. "Well, that was nice," she decided, pulling her coat over her, as it was now October and was nearing Winter. I nodded and laughed as well, holding her waist as we jumped over the curb and approached her car.

"I'll talk to you later, yeah?" I suggested, opening the car door for her. She smiled at my gesture and moved closer to me; our lips were two inches apart. I was just thinking that they might touch when she bid a quick "Thank you" closed the car door, and drove off. I was left to tell everyone that I still didn't have her phone number.

I owed Jerome ten pounds.

**A/N - Now the people on Team Fabian have met Nina! We're on a roll here. Next chapter is "The Surprise", and it will be up on May 17th.**


	10. The Surprise

**A/N - I really need to work on my writing schedule. It's gotten too messed up. I missed two weeks of Don't Be Afraid, and one week of Lost & Found. I need to take a break from Tumblr and actually dedicate time to writing; which, will happen never. Hopefully, I'll write chapter 11 of this story before the next update date comes.**

**I try to make chapters for this story relatively short, around 2,500-3,000 words, but when I was writing this chapter, I kind of went too far and it ended up being 6,000 words. Sorry if you like short chapters (The last chapter of Don't Be Afraid was 8,000 words. Someone take my computer away from me.)**

**DISCLAIMER: I arrived in Transylvania. I had a bit of trouble finding Jerome - apparently, people haven't seen "A boy who's way too tall for Mara Jaffray with giant hair and ice-cold blue eyes". Eventually, I found him wandering the streets, kicked out of the court room. The court took his papers, so no, I still do not own House of Anubis. Jerome and I are planning a break-in into the court room to get the papers back, because God damnit, I need to own House of Anubis. For now, though, I do not own it and I cannot make Jerome apologize to Mara except in Fanfiction. But once I own the show when Jerome and I break into the court room and steal the papers...shit is going to go down.**

* * *

**Nina  
Chapter 10: "The Surprise" **

He left Liverpool.

Two weeks ago, Fabian had to leave Liverpool for work. Possibly touring, writing, or singing. I didn't know. All I knew was that I didn't see from him or hear from him for two weeks.

That was a long time, compared. I had been talking to him by email for over two months every single day; it was weird to know I had to come home and do something other than talk to the father of my child.

So, instead, I invited Eddie over at 4. He, of course, came over at 2. He didn't even knock, since he'd been in my house too many times to count since my pregnancy. I was toying around with my phone when he ran in and collapsed on the couch in the common room.

Emma picked her head up from my lap and muttered, "Uncle Eddie?"

I laughed and rolled my eyes; Eddie had done this about ten bajillion times before. It's not like my Gran or I cared; he was around so much and he obviously cared about me and the child. "Yeah, that's right, kid," he muttered, his hands behind his head while staring up at the moving ceiling fan. "Uncle Eddie has arrived. The party don't start 'till I walk in."

"Tick Tock," I murmured, the smallest hint of a smile on my face. I pushed myself off the chair I was sitting in and grabbed Eddie's hand, which was laying limply over the side of the couch. "Come on, move your ass," I complained, attempting to pull him off the couch, but with no such luck. "Come _ooooooon,_ move it."

"Nah, I don't want to," he remarked sarcastically. Emma had grabbed his hand and Eddie was caressing it slighty; he told me he'd always been amazed at my daughter. Me and Mara joked all the time, calling him "Jacob Black" because it seemed like he 'wanted to imprint her'. It seemed like Eddie didn't care about anything, though; he didn't make any comments at all about the Jacob Black jokes we had been making for a year and a half.

"Whatever, I'll get the food myself," I told him, in a bribe to get him to move. I just wanted to have him hang out with me and talk to me; Mara had work to do after school, and Gran was out doing errands, so I would be all alone without Fabian Rutter to talk to and I'd be super lonely. Of course, Eddie had been my first choice. And first choices aren't always such good ideas.

"Food?" he perked up when he heard his favorite word. "Get out of the way, bitch, I was wondering why I smelled ham."

I laughed as he pushed me behind him as he ran into the kitchen; I had made ham sandwiches for Emma and I to eat, if we really were going to be left alone. I loved my daughter more than anyone else in the world, but as a seventeen year old Mum, it wasn't always easy to take care of her.

It was still unreal to me. It had been unreal since the morning of May 25th, 2010, when I pushed my daughter out of me. It was weird; I had a child at sixteen, because I was careless with a boy I really, really liked. I liked him so much that I didn't even care that I didn't know his name. I sent him the photograph because he had to know what happened in result of the night we slept together.

I was a coward. When I woke up the next morning, in a bed with a man I barely knew, I ran out. I didn't stay to ask his number or, God forbid, his name. I put on my clothes and ran out, leaving the man without as much as of a note, much less information to find me. All I knew was that I might be pregnant at fifteen. And, well, I was.

People at my school claimed I was "obsessed" with him, because I actually spent my time getting to know him over photos and interviews. I could never explain the pain I felt when he wasn't by my side, and Emma was left without a father and a mentally instable mother. I listened to him sing, which I actually heard the night we met; he was singing to me before he started to remove my bra strap and chaos wrecked. I liked him as a person and a singer, and I spent my time learning about him, while he wasn't thinking of the time he lost his virginity to a fifteen-year-old girl he met at a coffee shop in his hometown. I never even gave a thought to reconciling with him, because that wasn't right and would never work.

That was why I was beyond surprised when Fabian suddenly appeared at my doorstep and begged me to work things out with him. I never thought it would work. But the photograph reached him and we started to talk. Emma had a father and I had someone to fall back onto if anything bad happened to our dysfunctional family.

"Hey, is Nina Martin in there?" Eddie questioned, waving his hand in front of my face, his mouth stuffed with food. "Earth to Nina?"

"Huh?" He broke me out of the trance I was in. I watched Eddie eat his pre-prepared ham sandwich while holding Emma's hand under the table. I guessed that she inherited the shyness from her father, because I was more of a people-person.

Eddie and I had been friends ever since I moved here; we were both Americans, so it made sense why we instantly hit it off. You're attracted to someone who's like you; and in the sea of Brits, I found an American. He told me that he moved in with his dad when his mom died in America, so he was trying to make amends with his father, who had left when his parents got a divorce many years ago, and from the way they were acting, they were about 45% through with total forgiveness.

Eddie and I were best friends for a while, being in a lot of classes together and such. We had been best friends since our second year of high school. He came over my house so much that he didn't have to knock even before I became pregnant. We knew each other better than anyone in the world.

And yeah, sure, maybe I did have a little crush on him back in the day, but it wore off. I realized that I could never think of Eddie as anything but a friend. We just weren't made for that.

Right after Mara Jaffray joined our group, she had said she envied our friendship. 'We worked so well together', she said. I supposed that was true; after I had met Fabian and gotten pregnant with his child, he protected me. Mara was new at that point, so she was still shy towards us, but Eddie was full out Regina on anyone who dared to make a snarky comment. It wasn't like I needed him; I was a strong enough person to handle any bullies that ever came my way. But Eddie has always found a need to protect me.

Whether it be taking his coat off and putting it around me, wearing a short-sleeved shirt in the rain, or pushing me out of the way when a bitchy teenager pushed a shopping cart towards me in the parking lot of the market, Eddie has always protected me. And I've been there for him as well.

Mara was busy today, studying for a test in one of her extra subjects, so it was just me and Eddie today.

In the past two weeks, I'd talked to Mara and Eddie, of course, but it was weird to come home and not take out my laptop to start up a new conversation with Fabian about how the weatherman was wrong about the weather or how annoying Aaron was being. It had become a habit and it felt good to talk with him; after three full years of having no contact with Fabian Rutter, I felt I was doing something good with my life as a teenage parent. Emma deserved to have a father.

Eddie and I were comfortable around each other, obviously, so he didn't care that he was talking with his mouth stuffed with ham (but then again, he probably wouldn't care if we were around complete strangers.) "So, what's up? What have you been doing out of school lately?"

"Oh, nothing," I lied; but it wasn't actually a real lie. Lately, I hadn't been talking to Fabian, since he was out doing who-knows-what and hadn't heard from him in two weeks, but before that I was talking to him every day. I hadn't told anyone that I was emailing the famous singer. "What about you? Any progress with your dad?"

He shook his hand back and forth, conveying the message _Eh._ We went fishing the other day and he caught a _massive_ fish. He took a picture with both of us in it, and I don't want you getting hold of it, because you'll find it and you'll use it as blackmail against me."

"Hah," I laughed, but I don't think Eddie caught it, as he stuffed his face with more ham. Emma moved over from me to Eddie, at the other side of the table. Eddie noticed the two-year-olds arrival and picked her up under her arms and placed her on his lap.

I realized how different Eddie and Fabian acted towards Emma. Fabian was always awkward around Emma; I could tell he still wasn't used to the sentence, "_I'm a dad"._ Eddie, on the other hand, treated her as if she were his own daughter. Even the smallest action such as picking her up off the ground conveyed that.

"So, Pumpkin, what have _you_ been doing lately?"

Before I could even comprehend what Emma was saying, she spilled the beans. Let the cat out of the bag. Any cliché you could think of, she did.

"Daddy!" she exclaimed, moving to a more comfortable position on Eddie's lap. Sure, I was taken by surprise the slightest bit, but even Eddie knew I wouldn't go so far as to meeting up with Fabian Rutter. He knew who Emma's father was; it took a bit of persuading, but eventually he started to believe me. He knows who Fabian is the Emma; he would know that I'd know better not to mess with Fabian's life this early. It would be the right thing to do.

Oh well.

Obviously, since Emma was only two, Eddie's normal response, in a careful tone, was, "Emma, you have to understand that your daddy isn't here. He left a long time ago, okay? But wherever he is, I'm sure he loves you...even if he is somewhere in this country without the knowledge that he has a daughter..." he muttered the last part, and with every ticking second, I began to feel guiltier and guiltier.

I should've told him. I couldn't told him. But I didn't tell him. And in precisely one minute, I would pay the price.

"No," Emma began, ruining my life, "I saw him! He was in here!"

He took a deep breath, and brushed a tiny, thin strand behind her ear.

Eddie always loved Emma. Not in a Jacob Black kind of way, but how Emma loved Eddie as a niece. We were like siblings, so Eddie was Emma's uncle. She saw him so much in her short two years of life, that I'm sure he'd be etched into her memory, even if one day he, say, got hit by a car and killed, and Emma didn't see him when she was older.

It was scary to think about. Emma was going to grow up. She was going to get taller, her shoe size was going to increase, and her boobs were going to grow. Emma, in 2023, was going to be a teenager and would be a rebellious one at that, inheriting the trait from Uncle Eddie (even though apparently he got hit by a car and killed.)

"You'll still be here, right?" I tried to ask the question softly, before Emma could continue, but it probably ended up sounding threatening. "In 2023, when Emma is thirteen and she's a rebellious teenager, you're going to be here to send her to her room and make her think about what she's done, right?"

He chuckled, finally finishing his ham sandwich. He licked his fingers, trying to scrape some of the leftover ham from beneath his fingernails. "Yeah, of course," he began, "and if even if I did leave, I think you'd just find me and drag me by the ear back to your house."

I laughed, because he was right. I needed him in my life, and so did Emma. If he left, I probably_ would_ drag him by the ear back to Picton.

I decided to voice my thoughts of beforehand. "What if you were hit by a car and killed in 2020?"

"Who's driving the car?"

Eddie Miller: hit with a question involving dying, and the only thing he asks is who the murderer was.

"I don't know," I laughed, looking at Eddie's questioning hazel eyes. "Um, Elvis Presley."

I didn't know if Eddie wasn't in the mood for jokes or if he harbored an extreme love for the King of Rock and Roll, but he decided to say, "Elvis Presley is dead. That is disrespectful."

"Yeah," I retorted, "And so is your mother but you've told me about a bajillion times that 'John Travolta killed her'."

"Hey, the photograph of the drunk driver looked like John Travolta!"

"So you really think that John Travolta traveled to Los Angeles, partied too hard and got drunk, then proceeded to drive while under the influence and hit your mom, out of all the cars on that road?"

"Yes. So, now who killed me? Be realistic here. I'm trying to imagine my death." He sucked in a deep breath of air, and closed his eyes. He was obviously tying to picture his deathbed, so I decided to describe it more in detail.

"The date is June thirteenth, 2020. You, Eddison Carl Miller, are twenty-five years old. It is a beautiful summer day; the sun is high and bright in the sky, the birds are chirping, and the leaves are restling in the warm wind. You are driving along a road in this neighborhood, when suddenly a drunk driver that looks surprisingly like Elvis Presley comes smashing into you. Your head hits into the steering wheel so fast that you're dead before the air bag is released. There is no pain; only Blood is seeping out of a small cut in your head. A few minutes later, police officials arrive at the site of your death. They rush you to the hospital, but you're already dead. Lucifer has claimed your soul."

Before I count continue, Eddie interrupted me with, "Are you suggesting that I am going to Hell?"

Trying to hide my smile, I said simply, "Yes," and continued, "Lucifer is dragging you under from above. You are kicking and thrashing, desperate to stay on Earth. You have tried so hard to do good - which is the understatement of the century - but Lucifer silents you and you are taken down to hell. Your dad, Mara, Emma, and myself are standing over your dead body in the hospital, while your soul is burning in the pits of Hell. Mara is openly crying, because let's face it she would cry if she had to kill an insect, and your dad doesn't know how to be a proper dad yet so he's not crying but is kind of choking up. Emma is looking confused while she holds my hand, and, well, I'd probably be an emotional wreck. Someone would have to take me away because I was crying so hard.

"Eddison Carl Miller died at the hand of a drunk driver on June 13th, 2020, when Emma is ten years old. How do you feel?" I finished the description of Eddie's death, and he opened his eyes. He cocked an eyebrow, and I tried to suppress my laughs. I was holding in a gaffaw when he finally comprehended the entire description.

"So Elvis Presley rose from the dead, killed me by drunk driving, and I went to Hell."

I nodded, still failing to hold in my giggles. He sent me a glare, and moved his gaze to Emma, who was still sitting on his lap. "Let's just hope that doesn't happen to _you_, little one," he tapped Emma's nose, and Emma released a small giggle before Eddie continued, "You already lost your father. You don't need to lose Uncle Eddie at the hand of drunk driving on June 13th, 2020, when you're ten."

"Oh, no," Emma began, "I saw Daddy!"

Eddie took in a deep breath. "Maybe on a computer screen?" he suggested, knowing that Fabian Rutter wouldn't step foot into my house - oops.

"No!" Emma cried, her two-year-old self growing exasperated at her seventeen-year-old Uncle. "I saw Daddy! Here! In house!"

I was slowly slinking under the table, trying to get away from Eddie's stern lecture that was to come. Unfortunately, he saw me moving under the table, and picked me up by the ear and sat me in the chair next to him. Emma was running away, towards the living room, and I was forced to endure the argument.

"What does Emma mean by 'I saw Daddy in the house'?" He decided to start off simple.

I shrugged, trying to avoid his gaze by attempting to look for my daughter. "Dunno," I said absentmindly, not paying a lot of attention to the boy sitting next to me. "She probably just wants to think she has a father. You know, with me being a single mother, it can get stressful and Emma probably picks up on a of the stress in my life - "

"Can it, Nina," Eddie said. I grit my teeth; he was already suspecting. I decided to change my lie around a little bit.

"Oh, two year olds!" I tried to blow it off, making a movement with my hand. "They have such big imaginations. She wants to believe she has a dad, and she knows what he looks like, so she's probably imagining him in the house but -"

"The truth, Nina." Eddie could see right through my lies. I'd been a horrible liar my entire life; and I didn't magically become a better liar today. Eddie looked me straight in the eye, and I could tell there was no kidding around here.

I didn't really want to tell him. I felt like Fabian and me - everything we'd talked about and discussed since I sent him the photograph - was between us, and only us. Two weeks ago, before Fabian fell off the face of the Earth, he'd introduced me to his friends.

And that was a big step. I wasn't ready for it. I spent three years away from Fabian; I didn't want to move too fast. But my pace was too slow for Fabian, obviously; I had already been to his house, learned about his life at home, and met his friends. Meanwhile, Fabian didn't as much as know my dead parents names. I wasn't ready to be moving this fast.

I didn't want to give in. I'd feel like I'd surrendered to him if I gave him my phone number so early and so easily; he'd be able to get in touch with me sooner. I loved Fabian, don't get me wrong; but I didn't want our relationship to be moving as fast as we already were. If we moved just a bit slower, I'd be more comfortable with him.

I didn't even know what to call our relationship. Were we just friends? In a relationship? What were were? As far as I was concerned, we were just friends. I didn't want us to be any more than that. I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with him; if he ever wanted us to go out on dates and hold hands and be romantic, he'd have to earn the right to do so. We were cowards when we met, not to mention scared; I was the one to run out after I'd woken up. After all, I was only fifteen.

It was weird. We'd both aged, obviously - I was fifteen when I met Fabian in the coffee shop, and now I was seventeen; Fabian was sixteen when he met me and now he was nineteen. I don't think he'd be as open towards me if he was younger; Fabian was an adult now. He knew he had to take responsibility for what he did (Because, after all, it was half his fault.), but if he was my age, I would think he'd run away.

Many teenage boys, when they get the girl of their choice pregnant, run away. The girl can't help it; she's the one pregnant. Of course, she can have an abortion if she chooses, but the boy has the ability to cower and run away.

But Fabian wasn't like that. He chose to stay by my side.

If he could take responsibility and tell, of all people, his friends, than I could tell Eddie.

"What Emma means is that for the past two months, I've been talking with Fabian by email."

His response was completely different from what I expected (for him to flip shit and tell me off); he narrowed his eyes the tiniest bit, and asked me, "By email?"

"Yeah," I replied, twisting a strand of hair around my finger. I knew I was in for it now. "By email. He came to my house two months ago and we reunited. I didn't want to give him my phone number, so I gave him my email."

I closed my eyes, preparing for a six-foot teenager to came over and yell at me for keeping this from him. I waited, but I didn't sense any people approaching. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and saw Eddie was drumming his fingers on the table in a rhythm. I didn't say anything; I was waiting for him to start screaming. Once again, I was surprised by his actions, because the only thing he said was, "Show me the emails."

I obeyed him as if he was my father. I was closer to Eddie than I was to anyone else; I was sure he'd be upset about me keeping this secret from him. I ran up the stairs and grabbed my laptop from under my bed and ran back down the stairs, jumping on the ground from the fifth one up. I stuffed the black computer under my arm and started to walk casually up to Eddie.

"He's been away for two weeks," I began, placing the laptop on the table in front of Eddie and opening the screen, "So don't expect to see any recent messages. He's been too busy to answer my messages."

I tried to ignore him, but I heard Eddie's mutter of, "Yeah, because he's a douchebag and didn't even bother to find you three years ago," loud and clear. I rolled my eyes as I brought up my email and I showed him the recent IMs. Eddie grabbed the laptop from me and started to read the messages from the top; since August 8th, when we started IMing.

It took a few minutes. Eddie was a relatively fast reader, not to mention his bottled anger at the moment, so after about fifteen minutes, he shut the laptop closed with a snap and took a deep breath.

"Well?" I asked hopefully, wishing that he wouldn't hate Fabian. Eddie had always held a grudge against the singer; he thought that Fabian should've made an effort in finding me, and for a while I did too, but I realized that he had better things to dwell on than some girl he'd had sex with when he was sixteen. It was only one of the many times he'd have it in the majority of his life. And I would probably be only once.

"You didn't tell me about this...why?" Eddie asked, finally looking up to meet my eyes.

I was attempting to avoid his gaze. All that time, I had wanted to tell him about the emails, but I could never find the words. I held it in, but of course the guilt was eating at me every single time we discussed Emma's father. Now Eddie knew everything we'd talked about since the eighth of August, and he knew that we'd been growing as friends ever since.

What was worse was that now that he read the messages, he knew that Fabian was over my house. Judging by his expression, he realized that too; Eddie looked like a volcano ready to blow. I hurried over to his side and said quickly, "Look. We're parents. We're _Emma_'s parents. I'm trying to make things work with him. Please understand. I know you feel protective towards me, and I'm grateful for your concern, but you need to understand that we're trying to make things work as a family. I didn't have a mother or a father growing up. I want Emma to have both."

He took a deep breath before looking me in the eyes. "Nina, I just don't want him to hurt you. He's a celebrity. A _famous_ celebrity. He could leave you for a more famous person, or leave on a tour or something and Emma will be without a father for a while - or - he could get shot and killed by a psycho maniac and -"

"Eddie, Eddie, it's okay. We're just talking by email. I've only seen him in person four times in the last two months. That's it. _Four_ times."

"Only four times?"

"Only four times."

He calmed down a bit after he knew the short number of times I'd actually seen the father of my child. I wished I had seen him more, but not everything can work out the way you plan.

Calming himself, Eddie moved around his chair a bit, probably to make himself more comfortable. "Nina," he began, not looking me in the eye, "You never once told me how you and him met. You said you met in a coffee shop, but nothing more than that. Why not? Why won't you tell me, of all people?"

"I'm not telling you," I snapped, moving my gaze away from him. Without even looking at him, I knew he was hurt by my outburst, so I quickly apologized and continued. "I'm sorry. But I'm never, ever telling you what happened when we met or what happened when I went back to his apartment."

_He chuckled, his chest bouncing but his mouth stayed closed. "Britain most certainly is a wonderful place. Where are you going to school?"_

_"I don't even know," I answered, smiling a bit, "The school name isn't on the actual school. It starts with a C, though. That's all I know."_

_We were both smiling at each other, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from his blue eyes that only belonged to him. Mystery Boy didn't say a word; he only stared at me, and I didn't dare look away. His gaze was so captivating, making me want to learn more about him._

_"What about you?" I asked, leaning forward slightly. "Where do you go to school?"_

_Mystery Boy didn't look much older than me. He was probably my age, maybe a year older, so I figured he must go to school too. I never saw his face in the halls of my school, so that's why I didn't recognize him._

_"I go to school at a performing arts academy. My parents think I have some sort of gift of song-writing, so they're sending me there to, and I quote, 'master my gift'." He said, making air quotes with his hands._

_"Do you like going there, though? Is that what you want to do?"_

_Mystery Boy hesitated for only a second before saying, "Yes. I love song-writing. I love it more than anything, but I don't think I want to dedicate my whole day to it, you know?" I nodded. "I kind of want to go to college before I think of a career with music."_

For three years, I still remembered most of the details about the night we met. A lot was cloudy, but I still remembered it.

For three years, the only thing I remembered most clearly about him was his eyes.

**xXx**

He crashed on the couch once ten o'clock rolled around, but I couldn't sleep. I stayed awake, rain spilling on the windows outside, wondering what Fabian was doing at the moment.

Ever since he left Liverpool, I hadn't heard from him. No emails. Of course, it might have been a little easier to communicate if he had my phone number, but I swore to myself I'd never give him that. So I hadn't heard a peep out of him in fourteen days.

Emma was sound asleep upstairs, and Eddie was snoring contently on the couch while Mara's head was slouched on the side of the couch. After he had read my emails and criticized me for my continual use of "lol", we decided to play a bit with my daughter. I wasn't scared of leaving Eddie alone with Emma when I had to go out and get milk; in fact, when I had come back, Emma was taking a nap on Eddie's stomach and he was stroking her hair. I laughed and decided to prepare supper for the five of us, since Gran had returned and was too tired to cook, and Mara had finished studying and decided to come over.

One thing I learned that day: never let me cook supper. I set off the fire alarm not once, not twice, but three fucking times. Eddie was doubled over on the couch by the third time, snorting and laughing so hard he had to clutch his chest to keep his upright. Mara scolded me and took over, and by six o'clock, a nice supper was prepared and Gran, Eddie, Mara, Emma, and myself ate around the table. Gran went upstairs to rest her feet, Emma took her normal evening nap, and Mara and Eddie decided to watch a movie.

Eddie and I didn't tell Mara the truth about Fabian. She knew that he was Emma's father, but she was still ignorant to the fact that I had been talking to him. She still thought he didn't know he had a daughter.

I wondered what she thought of his latest interview; he had mentioned me, but didn't say my name, of course. Mara was a fan of Fabian, but she'd never admit it; she was also a fan of One Direction. She didn't know that I knew she liked Simon Cowell's boy band; if she knew, she'd probably run out screaming and throw herself off a cliff.

She tries to hide her love for Fabian, because of his connection to me, but I knew she still loved him. And that was fine; I didn't care. It wasn't like either of us were ever going to date him, like many fans of many bands thought they were.

I knew Joy Mercer, a girl from my school, liked Fabian, and I learned a few weeks ago that he was her inspiration. She knew a lot about him, but if I told her the truth, she'd laugh in my face and Patricia would probably start a rumor about what I said and bring Eddie and Mara along with me. If she knew the truth, she'd be so surprised.

I rolled my eyes at my thoughts, and picked up my computer from the ground. Eddie had read and re-read the messages a billion times, so the only time the computer was free to use was now, when he was asleep. I loaded an Internet browser and clicked on my email, but to my dismay, there were no new messages from Fabian. Today was a Sunday - you'd think he'd be free or maybe take someone's phone and email from there.

I got out of the chair I was sitting in and turned on the television. I watched a cartoon for a while, since I was too lazy to get up and change the channel, but I didn't hear much, since the volume was turned low so Mara and Eddie wouldn't wake up.

I think it was the fifth episode of the cartoon when I resorted to thinking _God, can this channel ever show a different program_, when there was a sound outside the house.

On instinct, I looked at the clock. The hands read _4:13 AM. _I brushed the thought of the sound away, thinking it was just the wind knocking the trash can over or something, so I diverted my attention away from the sound. I didn't think it was anything. I focused my attention back on the television program and attempted to concentrate.

The sound occurred again. It did sound like a trash can being knocked over, but I wasn't sure why the wind would be this strong at four in the morning. I waited a few seconds, preparing to hear it again, but when all I heard was silence, I took in a deep breath of oxygen and laid my head back against the lounge chair I was sitting in. I closed my eyes and attempted to go to sleep, but the sound happened again.

That was when my heart rate started to pick up. It was beating out of my chest at this point; I was most certain it was a robber, and he was going to kidnap my daughter in my own house and under my own nose. I pushed myself out of my chair, grabbed the nearest pointy thing I could find (which was a broken table leg), and advanced towards the door. I was preparing to knock this robber out.

I guessed we left the door unlocked, because a figure walked in, surrounded by darkness, as the lights were turned off. I held the table leg up higher, ready to whoop some ass, but all I did was stare in shock at the figure once he had come into the light.

There was some mumbling and muttering outside, and I wasn't sure who it was, other than the person standing in my foyer at the moment. Because of the noise outside the house, Mara and Eddie stirred, and I saw them sit up. Mara looked at the person in my foyer, and her eyes widened in shock. Eddie was shaking his head and gripping Mara's wrist for dear life.

The person faced me, his features showing better once I had turned on the light.

Fabian Rutter was standing in my foyer at four in the morning. Eddie and Mara were holding on to each other, while I was holding a table leg above my head. Fabian threw his arms up and exclaimed, "Surprise!"

* * *

**A/N - I'll try to get Chapter 11 up by next week, if I can finish chapter 38 by Monday; at least I have the whole weekend, ya know?**

**I do hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day~  
~Julianna**


	11. The Concert

**A/N - OH MY GOD. It's May 30th today and it's 90 DEGREES OUT TODAY. (32 degrees Celsius for all you non-Americans.) IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS HOT IN LONG ISLAND. I AM GOING TO DIE.**

**I wrote this chapter in less than 12 hours in burning weather, because I was too consumed with my other mult-chapter. My writing schedule has gotten so messed up that I don't even know what days I'm working on what story. Now, it's 1:13 AM on May 31st and I have precisely eight hours until the cover for House of Hades is released. I am freaking out. Oh my god. But, like I said, it is the update day, so I'm updating. It's just...very early for me to update.**

**DISCLAIMER: Our plan did not work. It was perfect; Jerome had suggested we disguise ourselves as the band Train to sneak into the courtroom and ask for the papers to House of Anubis. We were _this_ close, but Fabian had to come in and ruin all the fun. He dragged us back to Liverpool with him; he's forcing Jerome and I to say that, no, _we do not own House of Anubis, or any of the songs made my Train. _There's our Disclaimer. Now to just find a way out of Fabian's basement...**

**I do hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day!~  
~Julianna**

* * *

**Fabian  
Chapter 11: "The Concert"**

Unlike what I had discussed with Aaron, Nina wasn't thrilled. She wasn't jumping up and down like I expected her to; instead, she wore an expression of anger and shock.

"Oh my God, Fabian!" she exclaimed, throwing the broken table leg back into the common room. "You scared the living shit out of me! What the _bloody_ _hell_ are you doing here at four in the morning?"

"I think the real question is to why he's in your house Nina," a boy muttered bitterly from inside her common room. I didn't know who he was; Nina had always refused to tell me about her friends. She'd explained that she didn't want things to move too fast, but her 'fast' was too slow for me.

"I finished work!" I told her, moving closer to her side now that the table leg was safely out of the way, and the holder wasn't intending to smash my face in with it. "The reason I was gone for two weeks was because I had to record some songs for my next album out of town. I've been busy twenty-four/seven for the past two weeks. But since all the songs are recorded and I'm back in Liverpool, we can be together again!"

I could have sworn I saw Nina smile in the dim light of her foyer, but before she could speak, the boy that was sitting in her common room ran up to us. He looked at Nina, and pointed his finger at her. "You said you've only seen him in person four times in the last two months. This is _five! _I...I don't know...I just...Nina..." then he turned around and aimed his fingernail at me. "Where have you been?"

"Um, considering I don't know you, I'd advise you to please introduce yourself before you interrogate me," I said carefully, pushing his finger down from in front of my face and getting my first look at the boy; He definitely could be defined as attractive in girls' eyes. He had hazel eyes and blonde hair that was up in a spike. His eyes had a piercing look in them, as if he wanted to murder someone...and that someone would probably be me.

"I'm Eddie," the boy introduced himself, with an American accent, "Nina's friend." He held out his hand, and I shook it, but our gazes never left each other's faces. He looked like he was anticipating when I was going to pounce.

"Nice to meet you," I returned. "Considering that Nina never once told me about her friends."

Instead of introducing me to the girl in the common room, Eddie had to walk in there and drag her into the foyer by the ear. "And this is Mara," he told me, "our _other_ friend. She's shy, but she's practically _in love_ with you."

"Eddie!" the girl, Mara, scolded him, slapping his arm. He winced and started to rub it; the girl obviously had quite an arm. "I am not _in love_ with you...I mean, yeah, I like your music, but...I'm not..."

"It's okay," I chuckled, holding out my hand for Mara to shake, which she did, rather reluctantly. I released Mara's hand and turned to Nina, who was minding her business by holding her arms behind her back and staring at the tiled floor.

"Nina?" I asked, and she immediately looked up. "You know, I haven't seen or talked to you in two weeks," I began, a smile creeping up on my face. "Some girls might give the father of their child a hug."

Nina released a weak laugh and walked into my arms. I embraced her in a hug, and after not touching her, much less talking to her, it was nice to be back with her.

I had meant to email her, I really had, but with me in the recording booth and scheduling concerts with Aaron, I didn't have the time. I'd felt extremely guilty in the past fourteen days, so when Aaron drove me back to Liverpool, I'd requested to be driven to Nina's house first, despite the fact that it was four in the morning.

I'd only come in because the lights were on. It was a Friday, and Nina was in her last year of high school, so I wasn't surprised why she was up at that hour. Though, I certainly wasn't expecting to meet her friends, when she hadn't told me any details about them in the two months we'd been talking.

"Oh my God," Mara breathed, a British accent coming through, now that she wasn't whispering, after Nina and I released our grips on each other. I turned to face Mara, who's black hair was in curly tangles resting on her shoulders. "Nina, this is actually Fabian? This is the father of your child? This is Emma's father?"

"Um, yeah, Mara..." she smiled, moving closer to her friend. "That's Fabian Rutter standing in my foyer. The one and only singer."

"He's actually there?" Mara sounded extremely distressed, for some reason. "I...I can touch him? Like, touch him in real life and not on a computer screen? Nina, this is _huge!" _

Nina and Eddie were holding in laughs, but Mara wasn't finished yet. "Oh, wow, he's actually here..." she addressed me, looking me straight in the eye. "Nina spent three years watching you through a computer screen, while you were singing and playing the guitar without the knowledge that you had a daughter, you stupid idiot! Did you know how distressed she was? She had a baby without a father! And...and now you're here! You're _here_! In her house! WHAT IS THIS?"_  
_

Holding back his laughter, Eddie walked up to her and rubbed her back in a circle. "Shh..." he soothed, obviously trying to comfort her, even though he was probably just doing it so she wouldn't wake up the whole town. "Yes, Mara, that is Fabian Rutter standing in our doorway. Calm down. Your screams won't help anything."

Nina and I shared a look, and eventually I had to hold in my chuckles as well. Eddie, done with comforting his friend, walked back over to me and placed his hands on his hips. "You know, Mara's right," he began, and I knew I was in for a long talk with Nina's best friend. "You _were_ gone for three years. I just learned earlier today that Nina has been talking to you for the past two months, and Mara didn't know that at all, so that's why she's acting so surprised. I don't really understand this, because Emma has been fatherless for the past two years and now you're suddenly here, but you can't just act like the past three years hadn't happened."

"Eddie, it's _fine_," she tried to reason with him, but Eddie was passionate about this subject, as he continued his argument against me.

"Look, you're a famous singer. You're known worldwide. Like I said, I didn't know Nina was emailing you until earlier today, but she said she hasn't talked to you in two weeks because you were doing work or something."

"Oh, God," Nina breathed, obviously embarrassed. She shot me an apologetic look, then ran into the common room again and grabbed Mara by the arm. "Come along, Jaffray, we're going to the market."

"At four a.m?" Mara protested, and I could hear exhaustion and absolute confusion leaking in her tone. She either wanted to go back to sleep and pretend this never happened, or wanted an explanation from Nina herself; which, to the looks of it, Nina was doing. "I don't think they'll be open..."

"Nonsense, the convenience stores are open twenty-four hours!" she explained. Quickly, she waved me a goodbye, and weaved Mara through Eddie and I and out the door. When the car left the front of the house, Eddie, who was still here, turned to me again.

"How about we sit down?" he suggested, and I followed him into the kitchen. The last time I was in Nina's house was on August 9th, when I met my daughter for the first time. It had been a while; it was now October 20th, and this was only the second time I'd been over her house; and I was alone with her friend.

"You're not going to interrogate me, are you?" I laughed airily, moving around uncomfortably in my seat.

A thin smile spread across Eddie's lips as he shook his head. "Nah," he said, waving the idea aside, "I just want to talk to you about Nina and Emma."

"Speaking of Emma, where is she?" I asked.

"Where do you think she is?" Eddie acted as if the answer was obvious, which, it should have been. "It's four AM. Emma is two years old. She's asleep upstairs."

"Oh." I scratched the back of my neck and tried to change the subject, but Eddie beat me to it.

"Look, dude, you're famous. Girls at our school _love_ you." I tried to hold back a smile; I always liked hearing that someone liked me as a singer. "Just like with any celebrity, the media can take something and turn it into something it's not. Have you been out in public with Nina yet?"

"Well, once," I remembered, thinking back to the time we met up in the coffee shop back in September. "But I know we didn't get caught. We sat in the back of the shop when we went out, anyway, so no random costumer snapped a picture or anything like that."

He didn't look relieved; in fact, it didn't look like any emotion had crossed his face at all. Instead, without looking at me, he asked, "As I've said, Nina didn't tell me about meeting up with you until yesterday. I didn't know you were talking to her. When she was pregnant...she didn't even know who you were."

"I know," I breathed, guilt already leaking through my tone. "I've beat myself up for it multiple times, and I've even apologized to Nina, so no need to-"

"I'm not going to curse you out," he explained, his voice calm and steady. He lifted his eyes from the wooden table and continued, "All I'm saying is that Mara and I were the only ones to help her through her pregnancy. Her grandmother is old; she couldn't help her granddaughter during her time of need or drive her to the doctor's office to check on the baby that was growing inside her. I had to do all that. In fact, I still do; Nina's struggling in school; so while her and Mara study together, I'm the one to take Emma to the pediatrician for check-ups and I'm the one to buy the extra food for the toddler and I'm the one that comes over here every day to make sure Nina and Emma are safe. Do you?"

"We're trying to make it work," I said miserably, putting my face into my hands. Through my fingers, I muttered, "Look, I don't know how to talk about the night we met...I know it wasn't a mistake. Nina was an amazing girl, but I didn't know I had gotten her pregnant, as she left the morning after we'd slept together and I didn't get her number, or any means to contact her by. So, I had no idea I had a daughter until I got the photograph."

"Photograph?" Eddie questioned, and I explained how the photograph of Emma came in the mail, and how my friends and I had found Nina's information on the Internet, and how that lead to me reuniting with her. "Oh," Eddie said, and when he didn't say anything after that, I took it as my cue to continue my explanation.

"Like you said, I'm famous. Singing as an artist is everything I've ever wanted. Eddie, I'm trying to juggle the difficulties of fame with the constant guilt that I got a girl pregnant when she was fifteen and she was probably trying to feed her family, while I relaxed at home and watched television. Do you know how guilty I feel every day? I've only seen Nina in person for four times in the last two months, and I've only touched and seen my daughter twice. _Twice_. In two months. I am _nineteen_. This is as hard on _me_ as it is Nina."

Eddie blinked, and stared down at the table again. Sadness crossed his face, and he said a quick "Sorry", before looking up at me again. "I don't know what it's like to be famous, seeing as I'm a commoner in the sad land of England...I'm sorry," he repeated, "It must be hard on you and Nina to be juggling this extra weight on your shoulders. How do you deal with it?"

I shrugged, honestly having no idea. Eddie sighed and placed his elbow on the table, resting his chin in his palm. "So Nina really hasn't told you about me and Mara?"

I released a small chuckle and said, "No. She refuses to tell me about her friends."

Laughing, Eddie stated, "Well, there's really nothing interesting to tell anyway. I'm a rebel and Mara's a geek."

"Thanks for the info," I said lightly. It hit me that I was actually talking to one of Nina's friends; now was the time to get inside her head, without the stubborn girl trying to take things slow. "How long have you known Nina?"

"Since she came here," he said simply. "Which was...2008. So, I've known her for four years. We were thirteen...that's actually kind of weird when you think about how long it's been. She got pregnant in the summer of 2009, so I knew her for a year before your dick went wild."

"Anyway," I said quickly, desperate to change the subject, "You said that you didn't know about me and her until yesterday. What happened during her pregnancy?"

Eddie laughed harder than he had this whole talk. "Do you really want to know?" I nodded. "Oh, good Lord, Fabian, she was a mess. At first she was crying, because she was pregnant with Emma and didn't know who the father was. She had to stay home a lot during the first couple of months, because she was so distressed, not to mention the side effects of a child growing inside you. I was by her side the whole time; I don't think I could be away for ten hours without her growing crazy and flipping shit.

"Eventually, she calmed down and began to accept that she was pregnant; we went to doctor's appointments to check up on the little girl inside her, and she took responsibility; she took care of herself so the baby wouldn't be sick. Then, on May 25th, 2010, she gave birth to Emma Grace Martin.

"Emma was probably only a few months old when the school started to realize who you were. So, when Mara mentioned a guy called 'Fabian Rutter' she forced Nina to look him up, and, well...she recognized your face. She knew it you, the guy who she had sex with when she was fifteen...it was you. She knew it was you.

"I didn't believe her at first, of course. Not even Mara, and she believed me when I told her her dress she wore to my birthday party was nice." Eddie snorted at his joke, but continued his speech. "After all, who would believe her? Why would anyone believe she had sex with a famous celebrity who everyone loved? They would just think she was looking for attention.

"But one day when I was over her house, she told me about you being Emma's father, and she was bawling. I mean, completely bawling. I couldn't get her to calm down. Through her sobs, she told me the story of how she met you in the coffee shop and never learned your name. You were the same person she met three years ago. It was _you_. And that was when I finally believed her. She had sex with Fabian Rutter before he was famous, and know he was a famous singer known around the world. Emma's father was travelling worldwide without the knowledge that he had a daughter, and that was severely depressing.

"Mara didn't believe her at first, either, but Nina and I convinced her. So, for the past two years, we'd been studying you online. She'd followed you everywhere; she listened to your music, she watched your interviews; she learned things about you that she didn't learn the night she met you. She had told me before that she wanted to do something with you, but she could never find the courage in herself to find you and tell you you had a daughter. She loved you and respected your career too much to do that.

"But now, obviously, she did something about it, by sending you the photograph of Emma, and now you and I are sitting around Nina's kitchen table, alone, at four o'clock in the morning. How about that?"

* * *

**xXx**

* * *

Mara and Nina came back a few minutes later, carrying nothing. I knew they hadn't gone to the convenience store; but I didn't know how they got past Aaron, who was sitting in his car in front of the house.

I still hadn't told Aaron about Nina; I told him I wanted to see a friend who lived in Picton, so he drove me there without question, seeming as he was the one who worked my ass off the previous two weeks.

Once the two girls returned, Eddie and I were on good terms. They didn't seem tired at all as they sat by the counter around us, Mara touching buttons on her phone, desperately trying to avoid my gaze.

"Any reason why your friend won't look at me?" I whispered in Nina's ear, once she had sat next to me.

She beamed at me and announced, "Mara's in shock. She can't believe her famous singer is sitting in my house. She wants to talk to you and meet you in person, but she's too shy to do so."

I rolled my eyes playfully and grabbed a napkin from the holder; Nina handed me a pen, and I quickly scribbled my signature onto the paper napkin. Mara, still pushing buttons on her phone that would probably be nonsense words if Eddie or Nina ever took it away from her, looked shocked at the arrival of the paper napkin at her sides, and met my gaze for the first time, her eyes the size of tennis balls. "No, no, no!" she protested, "I don't want this! I mean, I don't need this! I...I..."

"Just take the damn napkin, Mara!" Eddie exclaimed, and with apparent reluctance, she gripped the piece of paper and, folding it carefully, stuffed it in her coat pocket.

"I don't want to make you think that you -" Mara began, but I cut her off with: "Stop it, Mara, it took two seconds to sign my name. Shut up and take the autograph." Her eyes changed from guilty to grateful as her lips curved into a smile.

I continued, "So, Eddie has told me to tell you, Nina, why I've been away for two weeks." Nina perked up at the mention of my absence. "I was recording for my next album, while Aaron and I planned for concerts and such. I was so busy that I coudn't ever get to a computer, so I'm sorry. Now that you haven't spoken to me for two weeks, do you feel compelled to give me your phone number?"

"Nope," Nina answered simply, popping the _p_. I groaned; I'd been talking with Nina for two months now, and she still refused to give me her number. She was probably one of the most stubborn people I'd ever known. Mick, Jerome, and Alfie thought it was hysterical how I still didn't posses her telephone number; they made constant jokes about it all the time.

Suddenly thinking of a solution to my problem, I turned to my new friend and asked, "You know Nina's phone number, obviously. How about giving it to me so I can talk to Nina more easily?"

I had just thought that my problem had been solved when Nina growled, "Eddison Carl Miller, don't you _dare_ give him my number."

I sighed; I respected Nina's wish to take things slower, but our communication would be better if I had her phone number. I'd been so close to receiving it from Eddie, but Nina obviously scared the boy out of his wits, because after she told him not to give me her number, he'd cowered away like a scared puppy.

"Anywho," I said, desperate to change the subject away from my embarrassment, "One of the concerts Aaron, my manager, planned," I said, adding in the last part so Eddie and Mara would know who I was talking about, "was in this area. Seeming as today's Saturday and you both crashed at your friend's house, I am assuming you all aren't busy today. The only people that ever come to my concerts as guests are my four sisters, so I'd love to have some non-related guests for once. How about it?"

"Mara's probably so excited she's gone into shock," Nina announced, pointing to her best friend, who was staring at me with her tennis ball eyes again. Nina faced me and said, "I'd love to come, Fabian. But don't think that I'm bringing Emma, because a concert full of girls probably wouldn't be the safest place for a two-year-old. What about you, Eddie?"

He shrugged. "I don't care. Anything to save me from going fishing with my dad."

"So I guess you're all coming, then?" I asked, and there was a chorus of "Yes". I beamed, bid my goodbye to Nina, and walked out of her house to sit in the seat next to Aaron in his car.

"Back, I see?" He said, looking up from his iPhone. Aaron lived on that thing; he made all his appointments and schedules on it. When I nodded, he asked, "Who were you seeing?"

"Oh, no one," I answered vaguely. "Come on, let's go home. I'm exhausted."

Aaron obeyed; he started the engine and the car started to move towards the road that lead to where I live; but that didn't stop him from interrogating me further. "Fabian, if you're hiding something from me, I will find out."

"Well, I'm not," I lied smoothly, fastening my seat belt while watching trees and road disappear. I knew I'd have to tell Aaron; I just didn't need to tell him now. I closed my eyes and I drifted off to sleep in the front seat of Aaron's van.

* * *

**xXx**

* * *

The next time my eyes opened, I was in my house's common room. I remembered Aaron telling me to prepare myself first thing for the concert I had in a few hours when he'd woken me up when we'd arrived home; but the first thing I did after I was fully awake was run upstairs to get my laptop to begin emailing Nina.

I'm glad I have my priorities straight.

The first email from Nina, in over two weeks, said: **Um, hey, yeah, I mean you invited us to your concert and we'll come, but we don't know where it is and where we should meet you.**

My reply came quick: **I don't know the name...Aaron tells me it's the "Theatre of Suffolk" somewhere around here. Go ask someone who's good with directions. Meet me backstage; tell the security guard or whoever's blocking it that you're Mick's new girlfriend and I invited you; they'll believe that. Mick has a new girlfriend every other month.**

Nina's reply read**: And what about Eddie and Mara?**

I typed my response of:** Just say that Eddie's your brother and Mara is your friend, the die-hard fan of Fabian Rutter. Which actually won't be a complete lie; you and Eddie are so close you could be siblings; not to mention how much you actually look related! And we both know that Mara loves me more than she loves you, so.**

After Nina's response was** ":)"** I decided to close my computer and get dressed before Aaron ripped my head off like bacon. I slipped into a plaid shirt and jeans; the outfit I'd normally wear for a concert. While my sisters, Mum, and Dad ate a quick meal before heading out, I decided to watch some television.

I had just seen a quick glimpse of a picture of myself before Rosie, my second-oldest sister waltzed in and turned off the telly. I groaned, but I didn't feel like complaining, so I followed her out of the house, down the hill, and into the car, where we drove a few minutes to the Theatre of Suffolk and arrived there.

I rushed into the backstage area, where I found Eddie, Nina, and Mara huddled together. Nina waved at me; Eddie looked like he wanted to cartwheel out of here; and Mara looked like she was about to implode. I said a quick hello, before ushering them out into the crowd of people.

I found my team, and they began prepping me; it was a tedious process, and was probably taking so long that Eddie probably had cartwheeled out of here already; but eventually I escaped from Carol and Aaron, with a hand around my shoulders, walked me to the back of the stage I was due to perform in in only a few seconds, but before I could step onto the wooden stage, he said, "Quick Confidence Lesson."

I rolled my eyes, but when he asked, "What will you do if you become scared and can't perform?" I answered with, "Imagine Chloe in her undergarments." I answered the same way every time, but Aaron seemed satisfied every time I answered. He slapped me on the back, whispered, "Good luck, kid," and I stepped onto the stage in front of thousands of screaming fans.

I didn't know why I even bothered looking for the trio; the arena was full of thousands of people. There was a one in a bazillion chance that I'd actually see the blonde, brunette, and black-haired group in the crowd of people in the building. I glanced at my band; James, the drummer, shot me a thumbs up, and I knew that was confirmation for me to go.

I greeted the crowd, and I couldn't help the oncoming smile turn into a grin. I loved hearing the sounds of the people who liked and listened to my music. I only had one album out, so I didn't have much to sing from; I chose a few select songs, like '_You I See_', '_Right Time'_, and '_We Shall Overcome_', which I recorded in 2011 with a woman named Tasie, who looked similar to Mara. Then there was '_Be Mine Tonight'_, '_Always the Quiet Ones'_, and '_One in a Million'_.

After singing a whipping six songs, James handed me a bottle of water and I sucked it down in one gulp. I didn't know if Mara, Eddie, or Nina were listening or not; Christ, I didn't even know if they were here at all. I hoped they were; I was wondering what they were thinking of me at the moment.

"Alright, guys, it's nearing the end," I spoke into the microphone, and the crowd gave a long "Aw". I smiled and rolled my eyes; it was funny, the way fans acted sometimes. "But as I always do, I cover a song at the end of every concert. I sing the song with the lyrics I most relate to at the moment; the song I'm really 'feeling'. And, today, I'm going to sing 'Drops of Jupiter' by Train.

The crowd roared; they obviously liked the song as much as I did.

"I'm singing that song today because I recently reconciled with someone whom I hadn't seen in a long time. Three years, to be precise. In the three years I hadn't seen her, she changed so much and in the short time I've been talking to her, she's making me find myself while I'm helping her find herself in the process. She's still a mystery, and that's what I like most about her. I thought this was the perfect song, so enjoy."

I sucked in a deep breath, and I gave my band the cue to start.

_"Now that she's back in the atmosphere, with drops of Jupiter in her hair;_

_She acts like Summer and walks like rain, reminds me that there's time to change;_

_Since the return of her stay on the moon, she listens like Spring, and she talks like June;_

_Tell me; did you sail across the sun? Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded? And that Heaven is overrated?_

_Tell me; did you fall from a shooting star; one without a permanent scar?_

_Did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?_

* * *

**xXx**

* * *

The first time I saw them was when Aaron had suggested we do a Q&A.

I don't know how I saw her. It was like we were connected; as soon as my heart rate sped up, so did hers. I wasn't prepared for Questions and Answers; what if the fans asked something I couldn't answer honestly? This wasn't an interview; this was real life, in front of thousands of living, breathing people.

I couldn't say no, obviously. So I reluctantly agreed, and the first question came from someone named Lauren.

"Are you single?" she asked with excitement; I knew a lot of artists had questions like that thrown at them.

I hesitated for half a second; I was actually making progress with Nina. I couldn't say that I fathered a child in front of thousands of girls, obviously, but I knew my relationship with Nina was making a steady increase. I didn't want to say I was 'single'...but then again...

"Yes, I'm single," I finally answered, and the arena full of girls erupted into screams. Someone calmed them down after a few moments, so a girl named Joy (her last name was Mercer, she also wanted me to know), could ask a question.

"Who's the girl you spoke about when you were singing Drops of Jupiter?" Joy looked curious. I inhaled, trying to think of an answer to her question while avoiding the true answer at the same time.

"Well, I don't think she would really want me to mention her name in front of thousands of people recording and listening to this," I chuckled to myself, "So sorry, I'm respecting her wishes. All I'm going to say is that she was an old friend."

I was expecting Joy to sit down, but she wasn't finished with her questions yet. "Whatever happened to Grace? I thought you and her were cute together."

Grace was an arrangement made for publicity by my manager and hers a few months ago; we had dated for half a year, but Aaron forced me to break up with her when I really started to like her. If Aaron hadn't made me break it up with her, I think we might still have been dating today. "We just disagreed on a lot of things," I said, which, honestly, wasn't a compete lie. Grace and I were complete opposites; Grace was the summer and I was the winter. Grace was the sun and I was the moon. We didn't get along that well all the time because of our disagreements. "We disagreed with each other on a lot of aspects of our relationship, so we figured we'd both end it naturally before it ended in heartbreak. And that's that."

Unfortunately, Joy asked one more question before one member of my team forced her to sit down. "You do know all of us love you, right? You're so talented and you deserve someone who's as nice and kind as you are."

I blushed, but what Joy didn't know was that her classmate was sitting only a few rows behind her; and her classmate was also the person who mothered my child. I can't imagine how delightful that would be if Nina ever had to tell her the truth...

* * *

**A/N - I'm looking forward to next chapter because it has to do with Twitter and has some Fabina bonding! c: Next chapter is going to be a big one between Nina and Fabian; it's a huge climb on the positive chart with their relationship. The story is going to reach its climax at the end of chapter 13, so it's coming! A lot of stuff is going to happen between now and the end, guys, trust me. It'll all be worth it. (:**

**I do hope you enjoyed this chapter I wrote at 1 AM, and I hope you have a sparkling day!~  
~Julianna**


	12. The Account

**A/N: I really like this chapter, because it's a big step in Fabian and Nina's relationship! You'll see what I mean towards the end — but I do hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it — and trust me, I entertained myself greatly by writing this xD**

**I like progression; I don't like those AU stories where Patricia and Eddie meet and in the second chapter they're already in love. In pretty much all my multi-chapters, you'll see progression; as I've stated above, this chapter is a _huge _step, and the next chapter is where we reach the climax. Things are going to pick up, my dear readers, because in a measly fourteen weeks, this story will be finished and completed.**

**Unfortunately, there probably won't be weekly updates anymore. I'm going to try my hardest, but with Lost & Found having about 4k words a chapter, and Don't Be Afraid having 6k or more, that's more than 10,000 words every single week. That's a lot for me to juggle, guys. Both stories will be completed in the future, but all I'm saying is that there might not be an update of Lost & Found every Friday anymore.**

**DISCLAIMER: Fabian has kept us locked in his basement for a while, now; Jerome and I have tried to Tweet the location of Fabian's address, but with no such luck; Fabian, the normal shy guy, figured out what we were doing and forced us to say that _I do not own House of Anubis, Twitter, or any songs used in this chapter._ It seems there are no more ways out of here, but Fabian doesn't know there are more tricks up my sleeve... (Mara *wink wink*)**

**I feel like imagery is an important aspect of this chapter; if you want to link to the Imgur album again, it's imgur/ a / VJ9qw#0. Without the spaces, and add a .com on imgur, of course. I do hope you enjoy this nice little chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day!  
~Julianna**

* * *

**Fabian  
****C****hapter 12: "The Account"**

"That was great!"

Nina ran up to me and tackled me in a hug. I was startled at first — the most intimate thing Nina and I had ever done was hold hands — but I smiled and pulled her closer. We stayed locked in each other's arms for a few moments, but eventually Nina pulled back.

"You liked it?" I asked enthusiastically, a huge smile still on my face. My hands were still around her waist.

"Of course I liked it!" she exclaimed, beaming. "That was amazing! Compared to the shy boy I met in the coffee shop three years ago...wow, Fabian, I'm so proud of you."

For three years, I'd been telling people that my classmates at the performing arts school I attended when I met Nina encouraged me to ask for a record deal; but that couldn't be more wrong. The people at my school couldn't be less discouraging. It was Nina who really pushed me to go for my dream of being an artist.

_I liked talking with Nina. She had interesting things to say, and even though she tore me away from my work, her conversation kept me captivated, making me want to talk more, which is rare for me._

_"I go to a performing arts academy," I began. "My parents think I have some sort of gift of song-writing, so they're sending me there to, and I quote, 'master my gift'." I was making air quotes to show what they said to me only two months ago._

_"Do you like going there, though? Is that what you want to do?"_

_I hesitated a moment, before realizing that was stupid because I should know the answer right away. "Yes," I said, beginning my statement confidently. "I love song writing. I love it more than anything, but I don't think I want to dedicate my whole day to it, you know? I kind of want to go to college before I think of a career with music."_

_"Ah, so you DO want to do something with music!" she giggled, showing me her beautiful smile. Now, she went back to being the person who asked the questions. "Is the song you were writing for school, or for yourself?"_

_I knew this one. "Myself. I'm writing it for myself. I just don't know what I'm going to do with it yet."_

_"What's it called?"_

_"It's called 'Lost and Found'. It's about two people who meet, but their love is lost and when they meet again, they're trying to rekindle the relationship they once had."_

_"That sounds great!" Nina beamed, and I was happy that she seemed interested in me and my musical career. She continued, "You sound really talented, but you seem so shy. Practice in front of a mirror, because if you overcome your fright, you could really go far, and I want you to achieve your dream."_

_"Thanks," I grinned, genuinely thankful. "You're a great girl, Nina."_

She really encouraged me that night and believed in me; no one in my family or any of my friends did that. I'd only known Nina for a few hours, but I'd really begun to fall for her.

"Fabian, who's this?" my youngest sister, fourteen-year-old Olivia asked. She pointed to the girl who I had my arms around, and I quickly removed my grip on Nina's waist; the only people in my family who knew about me and Nina were Isabelle and Chloe.

"This is my friend," I began; I actually was telling the truth, since Nina currently didn't want to move any further with our relationship. "Her name is Nina. Nina, this is Olivia, my youngest sister."

"Hi," Olivia said awkwardly; she'd always been shy around people she didn't know.

"Nice to meet you," Nina introduced herself, sticking out her hand with a smile on her face. I wasn't surprised; if Nina could come up to me, a kid that sat in the corner of the coffee shop alone with his laptop, then Nina wouldn't be uncomfortable around my baby sister.

Olivia grabbed Nina's hand rather awkwardly and they shook. After Nina let go of their grip, Olivia ran away and hid behind my hip. I chuckled, grabbing Olivia by the hand. "Liv, it's fine. She's not going to bite."

But Olivia bid me a quick goodbye and ran back to Mum. I rolled my eyes at my sister, but I immediately felt bad; Olivia didn't know my connection to Nina; she didn't know that Nina was the mother of my child. Only two of the seven people in my family knew...My mum didn't even know she was a grandmother...

That's when I decided to tell them. It had been over two months since I received the photograph. I'd been a father for two and a half years. For the past two months, I'd been telling myself to take responsibility; it was my fault just as much as it was Nina's. After all, I'd been the one to start unhooking her bra strap.

I'd have to tell my family today. I had to. But to do that, I'd need Nina with me...

I turned to face the dirty-blonde. "Nina, would you like to come with me to my place?"

"Again?" she asked, just like always, and I nodded.

"Yeah. We always have this tiny little 'after-party' after a concert. It's nothing special, just me and my family snacking on some crisps and drinks. We'll hang out in the den, away from all civilization.

"I don't know, Fabian..." Nina trailed off, glancing over to where Eddie and Mara were standing.

I understood, but I hadn't seen Nina in two weeks. I missed her so much during those fourteen days that I even surprised myself with my thoughts.

It was weird; I was apart from Nina for three years, but right now she looked more beautiful than what I remembered her to be. It might have been that she was two years older than when I met her, but the way her wavy blonde hair fell on her shoulders...or how her pale-green eyes shone like emeralds in the florescent lights of backstage...her beaming face made her look absolutely beautiful. Even her insecurities over coming over to my house made her more beautiful than before.

"Fabian?" Nina questioned, breaking me out of my trance.

"Oh?" I asked, startled. "Oh, yeah. Um, yeah, Eddie and Mara can come. If they want to to."

Nina's two friends, who somehow made their way over to where Nina and I were standing, tried to protest at the same time, leaving it coming out in a mess of words. Nina shushed them, but Eddie stated, "Yeah, I have to go help my dad with chores or something, and pack my bags for this fishing trip we're supposed to go on to 'bond'." He said, making air quotes. "Trust me, I'd rather come with you, but Eric's forcing me to go, so..."

He hugged Nina and Mara goodbye, and after he left, I asked Mara if she wanted to come. Nina covered her mouth before Mara could respond, and told me, "We'd love to. Should we follow you to your house, or...?"

"No," I began, scratching the back of my head uncomfortably. I'd known I was Emma's father for two months now, but I was still awkward about asking the mother of said child. "Could you, um, bring Emma? I...well, I've only seen her twice in my life, and I kind of want to see her again, you know?"

"Fabian," Nina started, and I knew I was in for a very well reasoned explanation. "We're going to be in a house full of lots people. Emma's a tiny two-year-old. Don't you think that'd be dangerous, not to mention overwhelming, especially for a two-year-old?"

"No, no," I tried to reason with her. "I told you that we'd be in the den. I won't let anyone come in. I just want it to be you and me, to talk a bit more. Is that okay? Mara doesn't have to come if she doesn't want to, but I'd really like you to come, Mara."

She finally agreed, and before I left, I hugged Nina goodbye. My sisters, my mum, and dad drove home with me, and the whole ride back I felt guilty, knowing that the other five people in my family would know that their shy son and brother had been a father for two years.

* * *

**xXx**

* * *

A few hours later, Isabelle called me from the den and into the common room. The 'after-party' had begun a while ago, and since I never really liked those things, I locked myself in the den and waited for Nina to come.

Isabelle held the front door open, while Nina stood in the doorway, with Emma holding her hand below her. Isabelle had her hands on her hips — I had guessed she remembered the talk we had before the interview I gave a few weeks ago — so she came to the conclusion that the toddler was my child and the young woman was the mother.

Isabelle was obviously waiting for an explanation, but I greeted Nina with a smile, and led her into the den, hoping that no one else saw. Before I closed the door to the den, I signed "sorry" to Isabelle by making a fist and rotating it around my chest; telling her I apologized in ASL.

I finally closed the door, but when I turned around, I saw Nina already playing around on my phone. "Hey," I said playfully, sitting down next to her on the couch. "Don't ruin anything."

Nina laughed, but she didn't move her gaze from my cell phone. She scrolled through the pages of applications I had on my phone, and finally settled on my Twitter.

"This'll be fun to look at..." she muttered, opening the App. I didn't think much of it at first; usually, assistants ran my Twitter account, but I occasionally Tweeted something now and then. I didn't think she'd do anything, until I saw her typing feverishly on the keyboard.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I questioned, scooting closer to her on the couch. I saw she was typing in a Tweet; she was almost ready to send. My eyes widened, in fear she was going to say something bad.

I craned my neck to read the message and saw that she was writing **Yo yo yo my name is fabian rutter.** "Now, how do you send this..." she muttered, right before I screeched, "NO!" and tried to reach for the phone.

When she looked at me, her green eyes shining, her grin stretching from ear to ear, I'd realized that I had never once seen her as happy as she was then.

Only a few hours previous, Eddie and I had had a long chat involving Nina and her pregnancy. He'd said that she'd been so distraught over the fact that she couldn't contact me or anything, and that the shock and sadness hadn't gone away.

Sure, Nina had laughed and smiled around me, but I'd never seen her smile so brightly. Her eyes had so much life in them; it was if she had just come to life. She was laughing louder than I had ever heard her; never, ever, not even once in my life had I seen her this happy.

I felt like that small little moment changed my feelings for her completely. I'd always known her as the troubled, single mother, which with whom I was trying to form a family. She was busy with school, work, and trying to keep her grandmother and daughter fed and healthy. Nina wasn't the happy, go-for-it, mystery loving girl I'd met in the coffee shop three years ago.

I'd gotten her pregnant, changing her life forever. She'd matured miles, and learned the value of family and happiness. She had a lot to juggle on her shoulders at the moment; she didn't really have time to do things that made her happy. I'd made her happy, probably happier than she had been in days, and I couldn't feel more content.

I was still staring at her, the echo of her laughter still on her face, when Nina pressed the 'send' button. I didn't care; I'd just seen Nina at the happiest, and I felt as happy as she had been.

Gently, I reached my hand over her body and grabbed my phone. While my fingers gripped the phone, my hand lingered on hers for a second, but I ignored her look when I saw that she had looked at me. I held the phone, the Twitter App shining in the dull florescent lights of my den. "No, Nina,_ this_ is how you use Twitter."

I typed in the message of **Last performance was great! Loved performing there!** then pressed the 'send' button, shoving the phone in Nina's face. A small smile started to creep up my face when I saw her take the phone back.**  
**

"That's so boring," she stated simply, and I cocked an eyebrow. "Tweet something more interesting, to let your fans know you have a life." Her fingers danced across the keyboard, and I turned my head around to see she was typing **I think there's man outside my window stalking me**.

"But that's not true," I stated, questioningly, meeting Nina's eyes. Her laughter still etched on her face, she explained.

"Yes, it is!" she said, pointing to the wooden door that led into another room. "Well, outside the _door_, that is."

I quickly pushed myself off the couch, and opened the door with such quickness that the girl standing outside the door almost fell to the floor. Chloe, her brown hair sitting on her shoulders, met my eyes with a look of shock. Then she eyed Nina, who was standing behind me, and Emma, who was sitting on the carpeted floor, playing with a toy car by herself. Chloe seemed to have put two and two together, as she looked at me again, looking like she was about to cry.

"Chloe,_ get out_," I growled, tears forming in her eyes. I pushed her back into the foyer, then slammed the door shut. I exhaled slowly, then plopped back down on the couch. Nina followed my movement, sitting on her leg.

"I don't know what to say," she murmured, almost inaudible. "I mean, if you don't want to tell your family, that's fine, but if you do want to tell them, I don't want to stop you, you know?" When I didn't respond to her statement, she continued. "How many people in your family know?"

"Only two," I admitted. "Isabelle and Chloe. Isabelle is twenty-two, so I think she can understand that I'm a father now, and I need to take responsibility. Chloe, however, is only sixteen, so I don't think she can grasp the concept that her older brother is a father. I never planned on telling either of them; Chloe eavesdropped on my conversation with Mick only two days after you sent me the photograph, and I had to confess to Isabelle one month ago. I don't know when I'll the rest of my family, though."

"God," Nina breathed, running her fingers through her hair, the look of happiness she had only a few minutes ago fading from her expression. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have sent you the photograph in the first place."

With a quick movement, I sent my hand over to hers and grasped it firmly in mine. I could tell Nina was shocked; I hadn't really _touched_ her since she reunited. Sure, I'd put my hand on her shoulder, or squeezed her hand in reassurance once or twice, but I'd never done anything too intimate. The last time I'd touched her more fiercely than I was doing right now, I'd ended up naked on top of Nina's body.

"Nina, don't say that," I commanded her. "If you hadn't sent me the photograph, I wouldn't know that Emma was alive. I'd be out, touring the world, without the knowledge that I had a daughter and the mother of said daughter was so troubled and stressed. I wouldn't be around to comfort you, nor would I know how beautiful, wonderful, and amazing my daughter was."

I walked over to where Emma was lying on the carpet, content with herself, and picked her up. She sent me a toothy smile. I returned the smile as I sat back down on the couch. "Nina, you're still the most amazing girl I know. No, you're not the girl I fell in love with at the coffee shop, but that's what makes you more amazing. You're as beautiful as I remember you to be; possibly even more beautiful. I couldn't imagine my life right now without Emma and you."

I took in a deep breath; I knew the answer to what I was thinking in my soul, but I didn't think I was confident enough to say it.

Then I remembered Nina; how she persuaded me three years ago to ask for a record deal, and how she keeps me going every day through email. If a complete stranger I met in the coffee shop, a stranger who knew me for less than twenty-four hours, could find the courage to walk up to _me,_ and start a conversation with me, then I could say what I wanted to say.

"I love both of you. I love Emma more than anything in the world; she means so much to me. I haven't seen her a lot, but I've been thinking of her and everything we've been through.

"Nina, I know you're scared, but there's no need to be. Haven't you seen how good of friends we've become? I couldn't imagine my life without you right now. I love both you and Emma."

Nina started to smile, but our conversation was cut short by my phone beeping. I checked the message, and it told me that a user had Favorited my Tweet; the first Tweet that Nina had made. Nina, obviously, read the message also, because she started to laugh.

"That's not fair!" I complained, but laughing at the same time. "I've sent out a million and one Tweets, and the one you decide to send out today is the one tons of people are Favoriting and Re-Tweeting? I bet you don't even have a Twitter of your own!"

Still laughing, Nina shook her head. "Nope!" she answered, her light brown hair swaying back and forth with the shake of her head. Chuckling slightly, I logged out of my Twitter account and clicked the 'Sign Up' button. Nina seemed to realize what I was doing, because she attempted to rip the phone out of my hands.

"Hmm..." I mused, tapping the corner of my phone to my chin. "What should your username be...? Hm...let's see...NinaMartin0707, yes." I typed in the name, moving my hands around to avoid Nina's attempts to grab the phone.

"That's my email address, you dweeb!" Nina joked, still trying to catch the mobile phone that was now swinging in the air, safely enclosed in my hands. I sent Nina a grin, before erasing the username.

"Seriously, though, what should your username be?" I asked. "I'm thinking: FabianRuttersBiggestFan, or TheMotherOfFabianRuttersChild, or even DreamingOfMarryingFabianRutter. How about it?"

Nina finally snatched the phone out of my grip and began to erase the choices I had thought of. "I'm an independent woman, thank you very much," she told me, but her grin was as wide as mine. "...Fine. Let's just make it NMEM0725."

"What's the symbolism behind that?" I asked, while Nina started to continue to sign up for her Twitter account.

"NM is Nina Martin, and EM is Emma Martin. I was born on the seventh, and Emma was born on the twenty-fifth. Mother and daughter," she explained, finally finishing the Sign Up. She handed me my phone back, and I saw the fresh, new Twitter account brought to life. "And what's so symbolic of 'fabianruttermusic'?" she retorted.

"Nothing," I admitted. "Aaron thought of it. It seems like Aaron does everything for me." I rolled my eyes.

Emma, who was being strangely quiet, was still laying down on the couch, leaning against my lap. I smiled at her, while she was contently rolling her toy truck along my leg,. while sucking her thumb.

During the two weeks when Nina and I had lost touch, I think I'd finally come to the realization and accepted that I was Emma's father. There was no denying it anymore. It as much as my fault as it was Nina's, but I'd been telling myself for the past few months that I needed to take responsibility.

Emma was my daughter. I'd never, in a million years, get used to saying that, but now I'd come to accept it. I was the one to start unhooking Nina's bra strap while my family was out of town. I'd brought her upstairs into my room to continue or night.

Emma was the result of that. Three years after the one-night stand, and almost two and a half years after Emma was born, I'd finally reunited with Nina and seen my daughter for the first time. I missed them both so much, and even though I was never going public with that information, I needed to at least tell my family. They deserved to know that their nineteen year old son was a father.

I was brought back to the present by Nina tapping into her phone. "Writing your first Tweet?" I guessed, and she nodded, a smile still on her face. In a few seconds, she handed me my phone back and I read her first Tweet. **Hello, all. I'm being held hostage by Fabian Rutter. #FabianRutterProblems.**

I blinked, not entirely sure I had read that right. When I met Nina's gaze, she looked like she was trying hard not to laugh. "Really?" I questioned, and Nina answered with, "Really."

I sighed, handing the phone back to her. "Try again," I stated simply, and the wait was only a few seconds this time as Nina handed me back the phone with **Eddie Miller is going fishing with his dad. Take pictures so it can be used as Blackmail.**

When I didn't say anything, Nina took that as another cue to try another one. Her Tweet this time said **Yo yo yo my name is nina martin**, the same Tweet that Nina had sent out on my account only a couple of minutes ago.

"You know, I could use this as blackmail against _you_," I said, pointing to Nina, who was having a lot of fun by touching buttons and typing things on my phone.

"How so?" Nina asked, placing her face in her palm and leaning her elbow against the arm of the couch.

"Now that I know your Twitter account, I could give you a shoutout," I stated simply, and Nina started to flip shit.

I only caught part of her speech: "No. DO NOT GIVE ME A SHOUTOUT! If people at my school see my name on your Twitter account then they'll assume that I like forced you to or something. Then, they'll corner me in a hallway and beat me up for having _my_ name on your page while none of _theirs_ was. In summary, it wouldn't be pretty, so I command you to NOT GIVE ME A SHOUTOUT."

Chuckling, I said, "It's fine, Nina. I'm not going to give you a shoutout. Calm down."

Suddenly, Nina eyes met mine. We lingered there, in each others gazes, for a split second, before I broke it by saying, "I think we should move Emma upstairs. Look, she's already fallen asleep."

"To where?" Nina asked.

"My room," I admitted, scratching the back of my head. When I saw Nina's face turn as red as a tomato, I held up my hands in defense. "_It's nothing like that_. All I mean is that Emma would be away from prowling eyes, safely tucked away in my room. We can get out of here as soon as possible...but we'll have to take a detour first..."

I ignored Nina's question of "What detour?" and tried to monitor all of my sisters. It turned out that they were all in the kitchen; it was the perfect time to tell them about me and Nina. My dad would probably disown me once I admitted to it, but I was a father now. A famous celebrity and a father at the same time. It was time to stop hanging out with my friends twenty-four seven and face this problem like a man.

I told Nina to stay in the den for a moment, and she obeyed. I silently opened the den door, and made my way over to the kitchen, where I knew I was walking into death. The only two people who wouldn't be surprised would be Isabelle and Chloe.

"What's wrong, Fabian?" my mum questioned as I walked into the kitchen. Chloe was eying me with suspicion, and it didn't help my mood that her and Isabelle were sneaking glances. I was free from other's peoples ears; the rest of the 'after-party' had already gone home. I'd spent the entire party in the den with my daughter and her mother.

"I have to tell you something," I began, and from the looks on everyone's faces, I knew this wasn't going to be easy to confess. "Look, I'm not going to refer to this as a mistake, because it wasn't. I honestly don't think of it as a mistake. So if any of you tell me to think of it that way and abandon the two of them, I'm going to have to tell you no."

"Get to the point, Fabian," Rosie, who was the second oldest in the Rutter family, announced. She was very smart; Rosie was probably analyzing everything I said and trying to figure out a conclusion. I was almost sure she had come to the conclusion that I was a dad already.

"Okay. I'm just going to come out and say it, so be prepared. In the summer of 2009, I met an amazing girl at the coffee shop downtown. Her name was Nina, and God, she was amazing. You guys were all out of town, so the apartment was empty. I brought her back, and, well...one thing led to another and I began taking off her bra strap."

I could tell everyone was shocked. Olivia; poor, shy, innocent Olivia was now learning that the older brother she looked up to was a father, and that he had kept the secret for however long.

I continued, trying not to think about what everyone must be thinking, "Long story short, we had sex. She left in the morning without as much as a note, and I hadn't seen her since. But then, two months ago, a letter came in the mail. It contained a photograph of a two-year-old girl; and, with some help from Jerome and Mick, we figured out that the girl in the photograph was my daughter.

"We drove to where the mother of my child lived, and I reunited with her after three years. As it turned out, that night we had sex together led to her getting pregnant and giving birth to my daughter, who's name is Emma. The mother's name is Nina. We've been talking by email for two months.

"In summary, I'm a father. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before, but I couldn't bear to see what everyone would say and do."

I closed my eyes, waiting for my dad to come up and start screaming in my ear and punch me into the middle of next week. Instead, I was greeted with complete silence.

Isabelle and Chloe, obviously, were emotionless. They already knew that their nineteen-year-old brother was a father. Olivia, however, was already in tears. She looked up to me; practically worshiped the ground I walked on. She just learned that her role model ruined a fifteen-year-old girl's life; if I was her, I would be crying also. The rest of the Rutter family, however, was just wide-eyed and apprehensive.

"Fabian Thomas Rutter," Mum said, using my full name; that was when I knew I was in for it. "If this is some kind of joke..."

"It's not," I assured them miserably. "Just wait here. I'll show you." Slowly, I walked back to the den and carried Emma's sleeping form in my arms. I told Nina to trail behind me, and she did, closing the den door for me. She followed me back into the kitchen, where the rest of my family was waiting.

"The girl I'm holding in my arms is Emma Grace Martin, two years old, born May 25th, 2010. She's my daughter. The mother is Nina Martin, who's currently hiding behind me." I grabbed Nina's hand and pulled her in front of me.

"Hi," she said, and I could hear the fear in her voice. I whispered in her ear, "It's okay. They're not going to hurt you."

"Well, Fabian, I don't really know what to do with this information," my dad informed me, his ice-cold blue eyes meeting my concrete-blue ones. "This is very sudden..." He eyed Nina, who realized she was being stared at, and hid behind my back again. My father continued, "I...I still don't know how to believe my only son is a father, much less that I myself am a grandfather. You will leave us to deal with this information, and I'll call you back here when we're ready."

I nodded slowly, and after pushing Emma up a little further in my arms so she wouldn't slip, I led Nina upstairs to my room. My bedroom wasn't much; all it contained was a Queen mattress and ten thousand guitars. I carefully placed Emma on top of my bed and covered her with one of the blankets I had. The huge blanket covered all of Emma's tiny two-year-old body, so I had to fold the blanket up a bit so it wasn't suffocating the toddler.

Just as I thought Nina and I might have some time to discuss what just happened, Emma began to wake up. "Mommy...?" she whispered; the toddler looked scared out of her wits. Nina sat on the edge of the bed and tried to coax Emma back into unconsciousness, but with no such luck. She stood up, placed her hands in her pockets, and faced me. "Fabian, I think she wants her daddy."

"What does she want me for?" I cried, completely unknowingly as to why she'd want the father she'd only seen twice in her life.

"She won't go to sleep!" Nina exclaimed impatiently. "I don't know why! Emma's usually a great sleeper...Fabian, do you know any lullabies?"

"Yeah, a few," I answered, and I sat down on the bed where Nina had sat. I could have done the 'Hush Little Baby' lullaby, or even the 'Rock-a-bye Baby' one, but I decided to switch it up a bit.

_"Isn't she lovely?"_ I began to sing, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Nina smile. I continued the song. _"Isn't she wonderful? Isn't she precious? Less than one minute old; and I never thought through love we'd be making one as lovely as she, but isn't she lovely, made from love."_

I took a deep breath, already seeing Emma's eyelids drooping. I decided to continue her lullaby. "_Isn't she pretty? Truly the angels best; Boy, I'm so happy; we have been Heaven blessed. I can't believe what God has done; through us, he's given life to one. But isn't she lovely, made from love?_

_"Isn't she lovely? Life and love are the same. Life is Aisha; the meaning of her name. Lonnie, it could not have not been done without you, who can see the one. That's so very lovely, made from love."_

* * *

**A/N - This has to be my favorite chapter so far. So much progress is made between characters; I'm extremely happy in the way it turned out. Lost & Found will reach its main climax at the end of the next chapter, "The Park"; the pace is picking up, guys, so buckle your seatbelts and prepare for a crazy ride ahead of you.  
Have a sparkling day!~  
~Julianna**


	13. The Park

**A/N - Gather 'round, gather 'round. Mama's going to tell all a story of why she didn't update for two weeks.**

**Well, first, I was writing a oneshot that I didn't think would be more than 3,000 words. It turned out to be 13,000 words. I really wanted to publish it before The Touchstone of Ra premiered in the United States; I really couldn't work on anything else while I was writing that long-ass oneshot.**

**Then, I had to write the next chapter of Don't Be Afraid. Week three of no updates was coming for that one, so I rushed the chapter in like a few days. DBA has been up and running in the HoA archive since October of 2011, so I wasn't just about to leave it. Once Don't Be Afraid was finished, I finally worked on this chapter of Lost & Found. *****insert Sebastion gif of 'I hope you appreciate what I go through for you' here***

**I know you're going to think, "Julianna, how is this chapter the main climax of the story?" but just be patient; trust me, by the time you reach the end of the chapter, things are going to move so quickly (whether in a positive or negative direction, you'll never know) that it will seem time is just ticking by. I'm scared that we're already halfway through the story; hopefully, since it's summer now and there's no worry over homework or tests, I'll be able to write much faster and there'll be an update either every week or every other week. **

**I'm also really sorry for continually making these Author Notes so damn long, but Paige said it herself; I cover a lot in my stories, so I also have to make the Author's Notes really long, because I have a lot to say with the chapter to come. Now, I hope you enjoy this two week late chapter, and I hope you have a brilliant day!  
**

* * *

**Nina  
****Chapter 13: "The Park"**

"Come _on_, Nina. You and I would be amazing partners!"

"Yeah, well I don't particularly want to be taught by you."

"Why _not_? Oh, come on, we'd have so much fun. I could teach you all about protons and photosynthesis and the periodic table and _goodness_, Nina, this could be so much fun if you'd just _agree_! You're failing Science, you know. Why pay someone to teach you when you have the smartest girl in class at your side right now?"

"You're right, Mara, I _am_ failing Science, but you don't have a two-year-old daughter and eighty-six year old grandmother to look after and make sure they're alive."

Mara had been trying to convince me to let her tutor me for a good few hours now; ever since Eddie spilled the beans and let Mara know I was failing Science, she'd followed me the entire way home and begged me to let her teach me.

It had been a week since Fabian suddenly showed up at my house at four in the morning; a week since Mara had seen her favorite singer. She'd tried to play it down, acting like she didn't care, but I knew she wanted to implode inside. Not to mention that she didn't know very much about Emma's father; I'd always been secretive around her. Now that she knew Emma's father was someone she knew and loved, I didn't think she'd let it go anytime soon.

I held the front door of my house open for Mara to walk in, and once we were both safely inside the house, I closed the door and led her upstairs to my room. I waved to my Gran, who was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper, before shutting the door to my room completely. Mara plopped down on the bed and reached for her books inside her rucksack.

"What I don't understand," Mara began, muttering, "is why, when you knew that Fabian was the father of Emma, you didn't tell everyone?" she questioned, moving her gaze from her sack to my face.

"You have got to be kidding me," I stated, incredulously. "Mara, I've told you this ten billion times, but I'll say it again. No one would believe me if I said I was the father of Fabian Rutter's child. _You_ didn't even believe me at first."

"Okay, okay," she held her hands up in surrender, "but at the time, he was a new singer, and I really, _really_ liked his music. Well . . . I — I kind of thought that you were just looking for attention. Emma was born only a few months ago, and she still didn't have a father. I thought, well, that you were looking for anyone who even looked _remotely_ like the boy you met. I honestly didn't think that Fabian was Emma's father Eddie convinced me; and I still had doubts until he showed up at your house the other day."

"Well, now you know," I murmured, grabbing my books out from the shelf. I sat down next to Mara on my bed, and started to open the book to the page the work was on; but Mara closed the book before I could find the page.

I asked what she was doing, and she announced, "I want to know more about Fabian Rutter."

When I groaned and rolled my eyes, Mara defended, "Hey! He's my favorite singer, and now that my best friend is in direct contact with him, it's the best way to learn about him!"

"I thought you wanted to tutor me today!"

"I do! But I also want to learn about Fabian!" Mara opened my book again and pointed to the paragraph we were ordered to read; as I started to take notes, she asked the first question. "So, what's his favorite color?"

Not even bothering to meet Mara's gaze, I answered, "Orange."

"Hm...how does he feel about being Emma's father?"

I sighed and shut the book closed with a _snap_. I met Mara's eyes and stated, "Stop it."

"What?" she asked incredulously. "I just want to know about you and him! You're my best friend, and now that I know for sure he's the father of your child . . . well, it's the best way you learn how your relationship is going as parents! Hey . . . where _is_ Emma, anyway?"

"Probably downstairs, with Gran," I guessed. "I'm not that sure. I can go check, though."

As I pushed myself up off of the bed, Mara grabbed my attention by saying "Ooh! Ooh!" when I turned around, my eyebrows raised, she said, "How does Emma feel about having a famous celebrity for a dad?"

Rolling my eyes at Mara, who was the smartest girl in class but couldn't seem to grasp that a two-year-old didn't know smack about her father, I jumped down the stairs and, seeing that Emma was sitting on Gran's lap at the kitchen table, sat down on a chair across from them.

Gran looked up from the newspaper and greeted me. "Hi, honey. How's school? And where's Mara?"

"Upstairs," I announced, taking a biscuit from the basket. "She kept asking me about Fabian, so I just ditched her."

Gran laughed. "Well, honey, at the rate you're going with him, you won't be able to keep the secret from the world much longer. I don't know if you've realized, but Fabian is a famous celebrity. He has fans. I'm not one to understand all this hype about music artists — and frankly, the One Direction fans just scare me — but I know that the media can take something and turn it into something it's not. Nina, if you say, go out in public with Fabian and Emma and someone gets a picture, it can get ugly."

"I know," I admitted, "but I really want to make things work, you know? I grew up without parents . . . I don't want Emma to go through the same thing I did."

Gran placed Emma on the tiled floor, and she wobbled over to me. I grabbed my daughter and placed her on top of my knee, thinking about how every single time that Fabian saw his daughter, he didn't want to hold her or go anywhere near her.

As I didn't know his name the first time I met him, I also didn't know how old he was. I presumed he was somewhere around my age; so another part of why I never tried to contact him back then to tell him he had a daughter was because he was young. He might not do anything to help me at all — I'd seen enough TV sitcoms and read enough articles to know that young men would normally back out on their pregnant girlfriends. I _had_ to tell Fabian about Emma — it was the right thing to do — but I wasn't expecting him to come to my house and beg to start a functioning family.

I was sure that in eleven years, Fabian's fame would die down and there wouldn't be any more screaming fans or interviews or old men following him around with a camera. No one ever remembers things from when they were two, so I was sure that by the time Emma was a teenager, Fabian would be a constant thing in her life and she wouldn't even remember the time when the famous singer/celebrity wasn't around.

"Is Mara still upstairs?" Gran asked, and when I nodded, she continued with: "Well, I'd suggest that you go back up to her before she runs downstairs screaming over something. You know what Mara's like."

I chuckled as I put Emma back on the ground. She ran over to her toy trucks, and I walked back upstairs. I knew what Gran meant; Mara makes something out of nothing. She'd see a dust bunny and run downstairs, screaming her lungs out, saying she heard an axe murderer come through the window. She was way too paranoid about everything. Not to mention the constant weird dreams she'd been having about some girl who kept begging her to help her escape an alternate dimension.

I reached my bedroom, only to see that Mara was busy scribbling notes down with her pen. "Are you ready to tell me more about Fabian now?" she questioned, once I sat down next to her.

"No," I stated simply. "Mara, whatever's happening between me and Fabian is strictly _between me and Fabian_. I'm a seventeen-year-old single mother of a two-year-old daughter who has a father who's a famous celebrity. My life is very messed up right now and I'm trying to make it work."

"I know," she sighed, "but I'm worried about you. You pretty much summarized your life in one sentence just before. Look, I don't care that you're dating a famous —"

"I'm not _dating_ him!"

"Okay, so you're seeing but not dating Fabian. I don't care that you're doing that. I don't care that he's my favorite singer. I won't ask you for details on everything, I promise; I just want to know how you two have been progressing."

I sighed, thinking about her statement. I wasn't about to leave her question unanswered, but I had no idea how to word our situation. "Well . . . where to start? Fabian explained to you how we met and everything, right?" When Mara nodded, I continued. "Well, we've been talking by email ever since August seventh. And since then, we've just been getting closer and closer.

"I was kind of scared at first, I admit. I don't know what I was thinking when I sent him the photograph. I just wanted him to know he had a daughter . . . and now we're here, right now. It's insane. And . . . I don't know what I'm feeling.

"I'm happy that I'm working things out with Fabian. Then I'm scared, because I don't know what's going to come with us being so close. I'm always anxious, but I'm proud of what we've overcome and how we're progressing, yet I'm questioning about Fabian's motives and what he says. It's an emotional roller coaster. It's really, really hard with Fabian being a popular singer.

"He has interviews, concerts, et cetera, and I'm here, seventeen years old, in my final year of high school. I constantly think that I'm burdening him when I email him and talk to him about my problems, like the history teacher that looks too young to be teaching about something that happened millenia ago or that Patricia and Joy continually think they're the best pair of friends in history and everyone else in unworthy. He's nineteen, he's finished school; he doesn't need to be talking to someone who's two years younger than him.

"But I need him. I do, I need him in my life. He's my rock. I know Eddie's there, but he isn't Emma's father. He doesn't understand that he can't be the one to help me buy Christmas presents for her or send her off to her first day of school. He can be there, but Emma will know that he isn't her father. Jesus Christ, she's two years old and she already calls him 'Uncle Eddie'. She'd have a father figure but her real, biological father will be in the other side of the world, dining in Chinese Buffets while he's on the phone with his friend, not even giving a thought to Nina Martin, that annoying girl who kept complaining to him about problems he doesn't have.

"I grew up without parents. Emma doesn't need to experience the same thing. I put off telling Fabian about his child for two long years, but I needed to take action. Like I said, I didn't actually expect him to take responsibility and fess, completely admitting that the girl in the photograph was his daughter, but he did, and now here we are. He took responsibility. We're trying to make a family, and that's something that people in our school would never understand.

"Our school is another part of it. No one would ever, ever believe me if I said that Fabian was the father of my child. That would basically get the same reaction if I said that Emma's the daughter of Harry Styles.

"I still remember that night in the coffee shop, when I sat down in front of him and said hello, when he was the shy person who didn't think he could ever have a career in music or have any fans, and now here he is, one of the most popular singers of today. People in our school love him, Mara. Take yourself, for instance. You're hesitant to admit it in front of me, but I know how much you admire him.

"If I ever dared to say that Fabian was the father of my child, I'd probably get called out and bullied so severely I'd either have to run away or kill myself. People are so cruel nowadays, and things they're passionate about, like music . . . they don't take those things lightly. I don't have proof, and I was sure that Fabian wouldn't answer me before I sent him the photograph. I didn't have evidence, so no one would believe me. Fabian doesn't understand troubled I am in school, with it being my final year, being a single mother and all.

"He admitted it himself: he wasn't ready to be a father. He spends his days hanging out with his friends and watching television programs. I am so grateful for him, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't understand shit about what I'm going through. He has his problems, and I have mine. I'm so happy that he's in my life and I'm in his, but we need to work out our problems before we take things a step further."

* * *

**Fabian Rutter: You know what I just noticed?  
Nina Martin: Tell all, tell all.  
Fabian Rutter: You're from the United States, but you never once told me what state you were from.  
Nina Martin: I didn't, did I? Well, I'm from Florida, the land of alligators, extreme summer heat, and DisneyWorld.  
Fabian Rutter: I've heard so much about DisneyWorld! I want to go there SO badly!  
Nina Martin: I bet you want to go there SO badly, but I bet you don't know the difference between DisneyWorld and DisneyLand . . .  
Fabian Rutter: . . . uh, DisneyWorld is in Florida and DisneyLand is in . . . New York?  
Nina Martin: Good guess, but no. Try again! (This should be fun . . .)  
Fabian Rutter: Why is it called "New" York? Is it new? Is it one of the newer states?  
Nina Martin: Don't ask me. There are plenty of "New" states. 1) New York, 2) New Hampshire, 3) New Mexico, 4) New Jersey.  
Fabian Rutter: There's a NEW Mexico? What happened to the old one?  
Nina Martin: Oh, God, Fabian. It's just a name! Who would have ever thought you could be so funny?  
****Fabian Rutter: Hahaha. That was so funny I forgot to laugh. Texas?  
****Nina Martin: Nope!  
****Fabian Rutter: Carolina?  
****Nina Martin: Which Carolina are you talking about?  
****Fabian Rutter: What do you mean, "which Carolina"? ARE YOU SAYING THERE ARE MORE THAN ONE CAROLINA?  
****Nina Martin: Yes! North Carolina and South Carolina. Which one do you think DisneyLand is in?  
****Fabian Rutter: Oh, Good Lord. How you lived in the US for only fifteen years of your life and can know all the states is beyond me. Um . . . South Carolina.  
****Nina Martin: No, it's not there, either!  
****Fabian Rutter: What other Carolina's are there? And why is there more than one state there?  
Nina Martin: Well, there's also North/South Dakota and Virginia/West Virginia.  
****Fabian Rutter: Ugggh, God, how many states do I have left to choose from?  
****Nina Martin: 47.  
****Fabian Rutter: There are FIFTY states? How?! There were only 13 when Britain was in control of you!  
****Nina Martin: Yes, Fabian, but that was in 1776. We are now 236 years past when Britain was in control of the US. Time has passed and things have changed!  
****Fabian Rutter: Yeah, well, they don't really give us a lesson in school where we have to name all 50 states of the United States. Gracious, I'll try again. Canada.  
****Nina Martin: Oh MY GOD FABIAN YOU'RE KILLING ME HERE  
****Fabian Rutter: What? What did I do?  
****Nina Martin: Canada isn't a . state, honey. It's a /different country/.  
Fabian Rutter: Oh . . . wow . . . okay, I officially give up. What state is it in?  
Nina Martin: California.  
Fabian Rutter: DAMNIT!  
Nina Martin: Fabian, how about I teach you all the states in America in the park? I've been meaning to get out of the house recently, and I'm sure Emma does too, much more to see her father again. How about it?**

Fabian agreed, but we'd be doing something much different than a geography lesson.

A few hours later, after Mara had left and we'd gotten ready, Fabian pulled up in the driveway with his car. I waved goodbye to my grandmother, and carrying Emma's small two-year-old body, walked down the pathway to his car. He held the door open for me, which I took gratefully; with a smile, I slid in to the passenger seat.

"How are you?" he asked, pulling the car out of the driveway.

"Good," I shrugged. "You?"

"Eh," he said, circling the steering wheel. "You know. Usual famous-celebrity stuff. Sightings, signings, concerts, stuff like that. Nothing really exciting. Amber has been bugging me to see you again since she can never get in touch with you by email."

"Well, sorry," I apologized, a smile creeping up on my face, "I'm a little too busy emailing _you_."

He laughed, keeping his eyes on the road as we sped toward the park. I continued to guide him to it, since he didn't know this area very well; I sent him down a dead end once, and he kept referencing my mistake over and over again.

It was strange, the progress we've made. I started out as someone who didn't want to get any closer to him, thinking that if I took one step closer, he would just disappear into thin air. I didn't want to give him my phone number because I'd feel as if we were moving too fast; I didn't want him to think I was trying to make a move on him.

Not to mention how often I thought that he was going to back out of our relationship and fall off the face of the Earth because he didn't want to contact me. But ever since August, we'd been growing closer and closer. Maybe it was the emails. But now I wasn't so closed around him, and I was sure Fabian knew that, because he was definitely taking advantage of it.

"Is this it?" he asked, pulling up to our destination. I nodded feverishly, and Fabian parked the car.

Being the gentleman he is, he ran out and opened the door for me. I smiled and laughed again, taking his hand as he lead me to the park. There wasn't a lot of people here; some parents pushing their toddlers in a swing, some teenage boys playing basketball on a court, and some girls playing tennis on the court to the right.

I gave Emma to Fabian, and in true Fabian fashion, he tried to decline the right to hold his daughter; but I pushed her into his arms and he shut up immediately. She started to play with Fabian's short, messy, dark brown hair, but Fabian didn't seem to care the slightest bit.

We walked further into the park and put Emma on one of those toddler-swings. I was pretty sure that some old ladies, women, and toddler boys wouldn't know who Fabian was, so he didn't need to wear sunglasses or anything to disguise him. I was kind of glad about that fact; I didn't need to walk around with someone I barely recognized, not to mention the fact that Emma was only two and probably wouldn't recognize him in the least because she'd only seen her father two times in the last two months and three weeks.

"This is nice," Fabian praised, his cement-blue eyes scanning the contents of the park. Eddie, Mara, and I, since we all met when we were thirteen, used to come here a lot back in secondary school, when we were studying for tests; but we soon hit our growth spurts and couldn't fit in the slide or was too big for the monkey bars. I'd taken Emma here a few times in the past two years, but never once with Fabian, so it felt nice that I was seeing him again.

I felt like I was going to see him much more often than I was doing lately. Emma would see her father a lot, and I'd see the person who I needed the most right now.

"You know . . ." he mused, looking me in the eye while he pushed his daughter back and forth on the swing, "You said that you kept your American accent through all these years, but you never explained why. Now's the perfect time to explain, while Emma drifts with the wind hitting her face." he persuaded, shaking Emma a bit to wake her up. I'd guessed that Gran hadn't given Emma her daily nap.

I narrowed my eyes, but I wasn't about to leave his question unanswered. "Well, I was only thirteen when I moved here. I did live in the United States for the first thirteen years of my life, so of course I'd speak like they did; but when I moved here, I made best friends with another American and a Brit who barely used her British accent. Mara barely spoke when Eddie and I first befriended her."

"Still haven't answered my question...?"

I released a small laugh. "Sorry. Started to get off track. Well, I was best friends with another American, and we talked much more than Mara and I talked at the time. True, I did go to school in a sea of Brits, but since I was with my American grandmother and American best friend, we kind of kept our accents. I think Mara's kind of losing her British accent, ha."

"And you think Emma will have an American accent?"

"Of course! She's not going to magically pick up a British accent, you know. Well . . . that depends on who she spends the most time with . . . she might have this mix of a British/American accent, considering she has a British dad and an American mom . . . but if you're away on tour . . . or if I'm dead, murdered by fangirls . . ."

Fabian eyed me warily, but he laughed all the same. "You know, I don't think I've ever been in a real park before. At least, not with my friends...and speaking of my friends, would you please email Amber back before she bites my head off? Every time I see her, she says 'How's Nina?' 'How's my BAF?' which she says is an acronym for 'Best American Friend' which is weird considering she's only seen you once and doesn't really know you. And what's ironic is that I, being Fabian, the father of Emma Rutter-Martin — or is it Emma Martin-Rutter? — Emma Rutter? — Emma Martin? — whatever, I'm the father of Emma and the rightful friend of Nina Martin, yet I don't know smack about you."

"Well, there really isn't that much to know," I said, picking Emma up out of the swing, considering the grandmother who was standing next to me was giving me the evil eye. I brought Fabian with me to another side of the park; I let Emma roam around, and him and I sat down on a bench. "Really, there isn't that much to know. I was born and raised in Sebastian, Florida, with my parents, until they died when I was ten. I lived with my grandmother for the next three years, until we moved to Liverpool, because she was offered a job here. I did have to say goodbye to some of my friends — and yes, Fabian, I _did_ have friends back then — so it was kind of sad, but in the first week of my move here, I met Eddie and Mara, and everything seemed to turn out okay. Then I met you in the coffee shop, and, well . . ." I sighed, shrugging my shoulders. "Here we are, in a park, together."

"Aaaaand now I know your complete life story," he said, exaggerating some of the syllables. "Look, I believe everything happens for a reason. Somehow, fate kicked in and we met in each other that night in the summer of 2009, and now we're left with a two-year-old daughter, named Emma Grace Martin-Rutter — or Rutter-Martin — WHATEVER."

I laughed, my chest bobbing up and down. "Hey, you're catching on!" I still wasn't used to Fabian holding my hand, but he grabbed it anyway and we continued talking.

"So, you never gave me that quiz on the United States," he pouted and I laughed.

I didn't even stop to think that he was still holding my hand, much less that he was _caressing_ it. "Okay, you'll have to tell me where the White House is and who the current President is."

"Oh, that's easy!" he announced, and a huge smile formed on his face. "Barack Obama and the White House is in Washington." When I remained silent, Fabian took that as a hint he was wrong. "No? Okay, um, California? New York? Texas? Florida? New Mexico? Old Mexico? Current Mexico? Yeah, I know shit about the United States."

I laughed again and we continued my quiz. I asked him where Mount Rushmore was (he guessed twenty states before he correctly guessed North Dakota); I asked him what states got the most tornadoes (he kept confusing tornadoes with hurricanes and couldn't understand why I kept saying no to states on the east coast); and I asked him about the capitals of the states, and trust me, he got so frustrated because he couldn't get them right that it was actually funny.

I didn't even start to think about the other people that were in the park because Fabian and I were so caught up with ourselves.. I guessed that the girls on the tennis court saw a dark-haired boy sitting on the bench, because one of them came up to us; she couldn't have been older than fifteen, but she tapped Fabian's shoulder and whispered, "Are you Fabian Rutter?"

He released a weak laugh and nodded. The girl's eyes grew to the size of watermelons and she started breathing heavily. She met the eyes of someone behind me and Fabian, who I presumed were the other girls on the tennis court; Fabian stood up, letting go of my hand, and addressed the small girl.

"Would you like anything?" he asked, and I smiled with pride. To know I was the reason why he wasn't the shy boy he was back then was something I would never get over. You can make a difference in someone's life. "An autograph, a photo?"

The girl still didn't respond. She signaled her friends over from the tennis court, and they all joined us. They all started talking at once; I couldn't decipher a lot of them, since all of them were wearing the same outfit; but more people came — an adult, the grandmother and grandfather, and even one of the teenage boys from the basketball court. They formed a circle around Fabian and I, and I couldn't see the other side of the park. I couldn't see my daughter — Fabian and I were swarmed with fans — and I was sure that I would get bitten in the butt for this later.

* * *

**A/N: Climax REACHED! Things are going to take a turn for the worst, so buckle your seat belts because I'm not kidding when I say that things are going to accelerate so fast.**

**One thing that I noticed during my two-week absence was that I have impatient readers. I actually got two messages on my tumblr account (if you have a FanFiction account, those two anons who asked, don't be afraid to show your face! I want to hug you!) saying that they were dying for an update! Don't worry, though; chapter 14 is currently in the works so I can guarantee an update next week. **

**Next Update: July 5th, 2013; "The Denial". Try to figure that one out! **

**I do hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day!  
~Julianna**


	14. The Denial

**A/N: This chapter is an extremely important chapter, and I'm actually satisfied with the way it came out, even though the beginning was kind of rough. Just like chapter 12, this is a big step in Fabian and Nina's relationship. This chapter is like Marijuana; it's the gateway drug, and in this case, chapter 14 is the chapter that leads to the big plot twist. I hope you all enjoy what I typed for you, and I hope you have a sparkling day!**

* * *

**Fabian**  
**Chapter 14: "The Denial"**

"Nina?" I yelled above the noise, trying to find the mother of my child in the swarm of people. Of all the bad things to come with fame, swarms was the worst of them. In the sea of people, I couldn't even catch a glimpse of the person I came here with.

She was nowhere to be seen, so I hoped she hadn't been eaten by the crowd of people. In the insanity of this group, I couldn't even hear a pin drop because they were so loud. "Nina!" I called out, hoping that she had heard me, but she still wasn't standing next to me or anywhere near me.

"OKAY!" I yelled, hoping to grab everyone's attention. The noise of everyone talking continued; nobody's head turned my way, except for people that were already looking at me. The noise of everyone's conversations was beginning to drive me mad, so I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled.

That got everyone's attention. Their conversations were instantly silenced, everyone's attention turning to me. After Aaron's constant Confidence Lessons back when I was starting as an artist, I'd learned to deal with attention, but even know I was still a bit uncomfortable around it. "ALRIGHT!' I yelled to make sure everyone could hear me. "EVERYONE, LISTEN UP! If you want anything, come up and form a line. I'd love to see all of you, but I can't do that if you're all talking at one. Make a line, approach me, and I'll gladly give you whatever you want. You know . . . unless it's illegal or I can't physically give it . . ."

They, surprisingly, listened to me, and made a line. Nina suddenly found her way over to me, and I slid my hand in hers to make sure I didn't lose her in the crowd again. The girls from the tennis court came first; some asked for photos, autographs which I dated with October 27th, 2012, and one even asked for a hugs. Some of the parents asked questions about my life, which was a bit surprising at first; no one had really asked about my life since 2009, when Nina sat down across from me in the coffee shop.

It was actually kind of funny, because when I had first met her, I was rude to her. All I wanted to do was write my song, but she kept annoying me by continually asking questions, so I closed my laptop and talked to her; and then I had gotten her pregnant. That was something I'd never forgive myself for. She was the only one to really ask me what I wanted with my life and what I planned to do, until now, when parents were asking me.

I answered, of course. I saw a few guys from the basketball court come up; some asked for autographs for their siblings; and I was like ninety-nine percent sure one of them just wanted an autograph for himself, but I had no problem with that and gladly delivered.

That continued for a while. I was surprised no one asked about the girl I was holding hands with — that was, until most of the people had cleared, even though they were all still looking at me, and there was only the original girl that had tapped on my shoulder left. I assumed she was shy, so I smiled reassuringly at her. Her anxiety seemed to clear as she pointed at Nina and asked, "Who is she?"

From the corner of my eye, I saw Nina's eyes widen. I wasn't sure what that was about; she always seemed to like talking to people. But I addressed the girl and said, "She's my friend. I known her for a long time, so I'm taking her and her niece to the park," I lied. I wasn't about to let this girl, who I didn't know, judge her, because I knew Nina hated being called names for being a teen mom. The shy girl seemed about the same age as Nina, so that was another reason why I wouldn't say _her and her daughter_.

The girl blinked, shyly bid me a goodbye, but I saw her look around the park as if I was lying. I ignored her and turned back to Nina's, who's eyes were still the size of tennis balls.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, and she started to smack my arm lightly. I could tell she was distressed about something, because her neck kept moving in all directions, as if she was looking for something . . . and then it hit me.

Where was my daughter?

"Emma?" I called out, and Nina repeated me. I took off from the spot I was in, and started to run around; Emma couldn't have gone far. Or at least I hoped; I had never been in this park before.

"EMMA?" Nina yelled, frantically looking behind big boulders and slides, hoping that she'd find her daughter. "EMMA! Where are you? EMMA!"

After looking behind a bench and realizing she wasn't there, I ran over to Nina and took her head in my hands. Tears were streaming down her face; I had only seen my daughter three times in the past but Nina had seen her three hundred and sixty-five days a year for the past three years. She was no doubt more distressed than I could ever be.

"Nina," I said, trying to calm her down; tears were still falling freely down her face. "It will be okay. Emma didn't run into the street and get hit by a car. She's here somewhere, I promise you. Besides, if she was hit by a car, we'd know," I joked lightly, but Nina didn't laugh. In fact, she seemed angry.

"Fabian!" she yelled, another tear falling. She started to walk again, out of my grip."This is our _daughter_ we're talking about! If . . . if I lose her . . ."

"Nina, it's fine, I understand—"

"NO!" she screamed, facing me again, no doubt attracting the attention of plenty of people, but I didn't care the slightest bit. Nina was right; Emma was my _daughter_. She had half of my blood and she was just as much as mine as she was Nina's. I was acting as if she was a distant relative. Nina continued with, "YOU _DON'T_ UNDERSTAND! You _weren't_ there when I gave birth to her! You _weren't_ there when she took her first steps! You _weren't_ there on her first and second birthdays! _YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND_, Fabian!"

I took a deep breath. I wasn't mad at Nina; I understood why she was so distressed. But she was right; I didn't understand. I wasn't there at any landmarks in Emma's childhood, and I'd probably never be, considering how busy I am. Nina was right. I would never understand.

I decided to keep looking, following Nina. I didn't talk to her; I thought it would be better if I left her alone to cool off. We checked behind benches, trees, and swings, and eventually we found her stuck in a slide, perfectly fine.

I was the one to go in and get her, so I slid down the tunnel and came out into the light of the chilly October afternoon. "And here we are!" I announced, bouncing Emma up a little bit so she wouldn't fall down. "Emma Martin, safe and sound."

Tears were still coming down her face, so I quickly touched my hand to her cheek to reassure that everything was okay. Nina smiled weakly, but it looked forced. I handed Nina her daughter, and we walked side-by-side back to the car. I figured that after the swarm and Emma going missing, it was enough for Nina for a while. I started the car and we sped away from the park.

"Well," I said, keeping my eyes on the road. "That was a fright."

Nina wasn't speaking. She was looking out the window, Emma in the child carseat I had bought a few weeks ago in the back of the car. It was like she couldn't hear me. When we stopped at a red light, I sighed and sat back. "Nina, would you talk to me?"

"What is there to talk about?" she growled, the tears on her face finally drying. "Us fighting? I don't really want to talk about that, Fabian."

"I know, I know," I said, smashing my foot against the pedal. "But we need to work things out. Remember? Back in August, we promised that we'd work our problems out."

Nina didn't respond. I rolled my eyes, figuring she was going back to the stubborn and mean façade she put up to block people out of her life. I knew what was under that, but I wished she would remember that we were a family and we'd have to work our problems out. We didn't talk for a few minutes, until I stopped at another red light and I asked, "Where are we going? I can take you back to my house and we talk about this —"

"Just take me home, Fabian," she said, not even bothering to look me in the eyes. I sighed, nodded, and sped back to her house. As I turned the block to her house, I was thinking about everything that happened; how we were swarmed, I couldn't find Nina, and then Emma went missing. I was distressed, of course, but Nina was right. I should've have been thinking I was as distressed as Nina was. She started crying because she was distressed.

In comparison, it was quite funny. When I was a toddler, my mum accidentally left me at a gas station; Mum apologized when she came to get me, but she didn't seem like she had been that distressed or worried. Nina was exactly the opposite; she was on the edge of hysterics and if we found Emma any later than we did, I was sure that Nina would have a mental breakdown.

I arrived at her house, but before I could open the door for her, Nina started to walk up the pathway to her house without even saying a goodbye. I didn't know what her problem was as I leaned against the door of my car, but Emma, peeking her head above Nina's shoulder, said, "Daddy?" and that was when Nina turned around.

"I'm sorry," she quickly apologized as she walked back to me. Nina handed me my daughter, and I held her in my arms for a second. I smiled to myself, but Nina quickly took Emma back and explained, "I'm sure she's tired. I'll talk to you later." she promised, and shut the door to her house.

I sighed. I didn't know what had made Nina so mad at me, but I entered the car and started to drive back home. By the time I pulled into the driveway, Rosie, my second-oldest sister, was outside waiting for me.

"What took you so long?" she asked.

I knew that Rosie, as well as the rest of my family knew my secret with Nina, so instead of shrugging it off, I answered it with, "I was at the park with Nina and Emma, when I was swarmed with fans."

"Ooh," Rosie unnecessarily commented.

"Yeah. So after the swarm lessened, Emma went missing and we started to look for her."

"Did you find her?"

"Of course we found her! She's with Nina at her house. I dropped her off before I came here."

"Why isn't she with you? You said you two would probably be coming back here together."

"That's what I thought, but Nina got mad."

"How did you get her mad?"

"I don't know," I announced, taking a seat in the common room. Rosie sat next to me. I liked talking with her; she was smart, like me, so we usually talked about school. Rosie was supposed to be in college right now, as she was 21, but she was going back in December so she was home for the next two months. I continued our conversation with: "I was distressed over Emma's disappearance, but Nina took it personally. I understood why she was so distressed, of course; it was her daughter! But I think she thought I was acting too distressed, which was kind of true. That was only the third time I'd seen my daughter in my life. I don't know Emma as well as Nina knows her. I tried talking with her in the car, but she held a grudge against me so I took her home."

After the concert one week ago, my family and I had worked out everything. My mum, surprisingly, took the news that I was a dad and she was a grandmother rather well; she even wanted to meet her granddaughter and Nina again. Isabelle and Chloe already knew, of course, but now that they could ask questions out in the open, I was asked questions about Nina and Emma much more often.

My dad, however, didn't take the news well. He tried to tell me to ignore Nina and Emma, to think of them as a mistake; with that news, I had yelled at him and said I'd _never_ think of Nina and Emma as a mistake, because they _weren't._ I loved Emma with all my heart, and I was so glad I had Nina back in my life.

Rosie had accepted the truth openly. We were good friends, so I usually came to her for advice on what I should do, which was why I was so relieved to see her and not Chloe on the front porch.

"Well, Fabes, I think you should apologize." After I nodded in agreement, Rosie continued. "I'm so upset. I was planning a romantic supper for you to go on together, but . . . oh well," she shrugged, a slight smile on her face. "We'll have to do it another day. Why don't you try calling her?"

I blinked.

"Oh, right, you don't have her number," Rosie laughed, picking herself off the couch. She wasn't the skinniest person on the planet; she had a bit of meat on her, but it didn't make her any less beautiful. Rosie's boyfriend treated her like a princess; maybe I should follow in her boyfriend's footsteps. I was still confused about my relationship with Nina; we weren't dating, but we were definitely more than friends. Pre-boyfriend and girlfriend? What was the term for people trying to work in a family, more than friends, but weren't dating? Acquaintances?

I ignored Rosie's laugh as I opened the computer to try to email her. I hoped she was online, but the small green dot wasn't lit up. Nina was offline.

I sent her an email anyway, so she could see it when she logged on. **Nina, I'm sorry for today. I don't know what happened, but I hope we can work things out. Promise you'll talk to me later? **

But she couldn't promise because she wasn't on. Before I could log off of the email, however, I received an IM from Aaron. I groaned as I read his message: **Fabian, what the hell is this?! [download picture]**

I clicked the link to download the picture, and my heart was pounding as it loaded. Whenever Aaron was mad, I saw the beginning to World War III. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for what I was about to see, when it finally loaded and I clicked the picture.

It was a photo of me and Nina at the park. I was holding Emma in one of my arms, and I was touching Nina's cheek with the other.

My eyes widened. "Shit," I muttered, my hands fumbling across the keyboard as I typed my response to Aaron's message. **Oh. Some woman's niece had gotten stuck in the slide, so I went up there and got the toddler for her. She was crying, so I was touching her face to reassure her that her niece was fine.**

My heart rate was accelerating. I saw the three dots at the bottom, saying Aaron was typing his message, when my hands, shaking uncontrollably, fumbled for my phone. I checked my Twitter account, only to find hundreds of people asking me what this picture was.

"How did this happen?" I muttered to myself, scrolling through the hundreds of accounts Tweeting me the picture of me and Nina. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit."

Nina was going to _murder_ me. She couldn't have known that someone had taken the picture in the car, could she? Was that why she was ignoring me? She most definitely knew about the picture by now. Nina told me a while before that many people in her school loved me, so when she went back to school on Monday, which was tomorrow . . . it wasn't going to pretty.

I was about to type a Tweet, when Aaron's IM had finally arrived in my inbox. It read: **I don't believe you, Fabian. Tell me the truth, and the whole truth.**

I sighed. I had kept Nina a secret from Aaron for over two months, but if I could tell my parents about Nina and my daughter, then I could tell Aaron. I typed my response. **Fine. The woman crying is Nina Martin, and the toddler in my arms is my daughter, Emma. Nina is the mother of my child.**

Aaron's response came rather quickly.** Tell me you're kidding.**

I typed:** I'm not, unfortunately. I'm sorry. I was scared of what you would do. I'm not kidding here, I assure you. I'm that child's father and the woman is the mother of said child. **

Aaron's reply was:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll scold you about your relationships later. Right now, we're talking about the picture. Fabian, this is NOT GOOD. The picture is everywhere on Twitter and on fan websites. Hundreds of people have seen it. **

My chest heaving, I was about ready to cry. This was never supposed to happen. Nina already had a child and an old grandmother to look after; she didn't need people hating on her because I was touching her cheek. If the truth got out that it was our child . . .I responded to Aaron's reply, my hands shaking; I didn't bother to correct the typos.** What am I goignt o do? aaron I don;t know wjhuat to do i just wwercked eevyrthing hellp me**

Aaron's reply didn't come; instead, he called the house phone. I answered on the first ring. "Aaron I think I just wrecked everything with Nina oh god Aaron please help me I didn't mean to do this what am I going to do?!"

"Fabian," Aaron's voice was commanding, and listening to it made me think straight. "Calm down. We can sort everything out if you calm down. Now take a deep breath and count to ten. Ten . . ."

Inhale.

"Nine . . ."

Exhale.

By the time he reached one, my breathing was steady again. I was so scared and worried that I didn't even know if I was crying or not, but I pretty sure I was. I cared about Nina more than anyone else right now, and if I had just ruined her life further than I already had, I didn't know if I'd be able to take it. I'd probably hate myself for the rest of eternity.

Aaron's commanding voice finally calmed me down. "Fabian, everything will turn out okay. Do people in the park know that Emma is your daughter and Nina is the mother?"

"No," I breathed, closing my eyes, pacing back and forth.

"That's good," Aaron continued. "I'm pretty sure people have already guessed their relation to you, based on what I've seen on Twitter. Fabian, I want you to send out a Tweet saying that the girl was a friend of yours and the little girl is her niece, just like you said she was to me before. Okay? I'm hoping that most of the people Tweeting the picture to you don't know her personally."

"No, if she saw someone from her school we would have left," I said, my voice shaking.

"That's good," Aaron said. "Fabian, I know you're scared. But calm down. Have you sent out the Tweet yet?"

"No," I answered, but I ran back to the couch to pick up my phone and I typed in the Tweet. After rereading it a billion times, I finally sent it. "Okay, Aaron. The Tweet says **To everyone who's wondering about the photo, it's just a friend of mine who was worried because she lost her niece. Leave her alone. **Is that okay?"

"I hope so, kid. I hope so. Oh, and I scheduled an interview on a talk show tomorrow so I hope that's okay with you okay bye!"

"What? Aaron, what do you mean?" I yelled into the phone, but he had already hung up. I crashed on the couch and buried my head in my hands.

What had I done? I should have known that one of the girls on the tennis court would take a picture. Nina had caused a commotion with the screaming, so it wasn't a big surprise why they had taken the picture. Now it was all over the internet . . .

A photograph made my life better in August because I reunited with Nina and met my daughter, but now a different photograph had just ruined all that. Nina would never forgive me. After almost three months of us talking by email and trying to make things work as a family, could a photograph ruin it all after a different one started it?

Now, apparently, I was scheduled to be on a talk show tomorrow. It was probably about the photograph that was swarming. What was I going to do? I could lie to to the whole world about who she was.

I said she was a friend, which she was, but if I was being honest with myself, I could feel myself falling in love with her. I didn't know what it was . . . maybe it was the way she smiled at me when I made her laugh . . . or the way she was always so focused and knew what to do . . . maybe it was that she was finally warming up to me . . .

"Oh, you are so in love with her," Isabelle said. I was shocked at first; how had she heard me?

"I said that out loud, didn't I?"

Isabelle nodded, a smile on her face. She walked into the common room and sat down next to me. "Do you really think I'm—"

I didn't even need to finish my sentence. She said, "So in love. Head over heels in love. Fabian Thomas Rutter, you are in love with Nina Martin. It's so obvious."

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

After hours of talking to Aaron, him trying to persaude me that everything was going to be fine, I had decided to go to sleep. My head was pounding with a headache, and I was sure a nice long sleep would fix that. I fell asleep trying to think of any way to convince Nina that I didn't mean to fight and for the photograph to be taken. Soon enough, I fell asleep.

Then, I was right in front of Nina's door. The moon was out; everything around me was still. Even though the neighboorhood looked exactly the same as it did when I drove here last night, it seemed . . . different somehow. I couldn't place it.

I could hear sounds inside her house, so I slowly and quietly crept up to her front door and opened it with a _reeeeeeeaaaaaaak_. "Nina?" I asked quietly, the sounds becoming louder and clearer. "Nina, where are you?"

The sounds were closer now. As I continued walking, I could place it: crying. Someone was crying. "Nina!" I yelled, wondering why she was up and crying at this hour. "Nina, come on, it's just me. Everything will be fine. . . . there's no need to cry . . .

But as I approached the source of the noise, I could see that it _wasn't_ Nina who was crying. In fact, there was two people on the ground. I couldn't see their faces, but as I got closer to them, they didn't seem to know I was here.

I circled them, trying to see their faces, but both of their heads were buried in their hands. There was a girl and a boy, and neither of them were Nina; I could tell that much. The girl and the boy were holding on to each other for dear life. The boy was crying so hard that even _I_ was surprised.

When the girl picked her head up, her tear-streaked face being exposed, I recognized who it was. _Mara_. Nina's friend. If Mara was the girl crying, then Eddie had to have been the boy.

Mara looked straight at me, but she still didn't seem to realize I was here. She wiped her cheeks free of tears, but they kept pouring. She tapped Eddie's shoulder, and after a few seconds of reluctance, he exposed his face, which was much worse than Mara's. I didn't know why Nina's two best friends were crying in her house, but I knew that Eddie wouldn't stop crying for a while.

"I can't believe it," Mara choked out. "I . . . she . . . Eddie?"

He let out another sob and grabbed Mara's shirt and sobbed into it. He was crying so hard that I wanted to go over there and comfort him, but I knew that I couldn't. I walked around the crying ball to the other side of it, only to see that Eddie was holding something in his hand — a piece of paper with writing on it.

As he cried, he let go of the paper. I reached down to pick it up, only to see sloppy handwriting covering the entire page. My heart pounded as I read the words.

_Dear whoever is reading this,  
I'm sorry. But after finding out that I was pregnant, and after months and months after trying to find the father of the baby, I couldn't do it anymore. I'm only 15; if I had to give birth at this age, it would be a nightmare. Kids would bully me to no lengths. Trust me, it'll be better this way. Eddie: I love you so much, and thank you for protecting me and taking me to the doctor when I needed it. Mara: thank you for defending me that time when Patricia and Joy called me a slut. Gran: I know you're old, but I'm glad you're my guardian. You always have the best advice. I needed you guys and you were always there. But now, there's no need for me to fear giving birth or having an abortion, because I'll be dead, and the baby will die with me. I'm sorry for putting you guys through this—you're not friends with the pregnant girl anymore.  
With love,  
Nina_

That's when I realized this was Nina's suicide note. I ran down the hall to her room, smashed the door open, only to find Nina's limp body, her neck tied in a noose. She had hung herself.

"Nina!" I yelled, feeling the tears starting to pour out. I shook her body, trying to wake up her up, but her eyes wouldn't open and her chest wasn't moving. "Nina! Come on! Stop it! Wake up! Please! Please . . . I love you . . . you can't do this to me . . ."

I crashed on the floor, burying my head in my hands, sobbing.

Before anything else could happen, my eyes jolted open and I recognized the scenery around me. I was in my bedroom.

_It was a dream.  
_

_It was only a dream._

But I couldn't be sure. Panting, I felt around for my phone in the blankets; eventually, I found it and started to dial Nina's number; but then I realized I didn't have it.

I had to make sure she was alive and that the dream I had was _just_ a dream and nothing more. I didn't give a thought to the fact that it was 3 AM and everyone in my house was sleeping. I didn't give a thought to the fact that I was in my pajama pants with no shirt on. I opened the front door hastily, unlocked my car doors, and sped off to Picton, where Nina lived.

Eventually, after miles of pondering about the dream I had and what happened at the park, I arrived in front of Nina's house. I didn't stop to knock; instead, I reached for the key under the mat, unlocked the door, and ran into Nina's room, only to find it the same way as I last saw it. What was better was that there was no body hanging from the ceiling; instead, the body was sleeping soundly in her bed.

I sighed contently. I wasn't trying to wake her, but when I saw her body move the slightest bit — when I saw her sit up, rub her eyes and ask, "Fabian? What are doing here?" I ran up to her and tackled her in a hug. "Oh, Nina," I breathed, holding her body against my own. I could tell by her body movement that she was confused, but I held her close and didn't let her go. "I'm so sorry for everything. I didn't mean to make you mad. Oh . . . I'm so sorry . . . I'm just glad you're alive . . ."

"What are you talking about?" she murmured, squirming around so she could get out of my grasp. She faced me, her eyes still having a bit of sleep in them. "Fabian, what's going on? Why are you here at three in the morning?"

"No reason," I said, forcing a smile at her. "I just wanted to hear your voice."

I could see her smile a little bit. She wasn't bringing the photograph of us in the park up, so I was glad we didn't have to talk about that this early in the day. "Did you have a dream?" she asked, and I nodded. She paused for only a second, but then said, "Fabian, you're crying. Are you all right?"

I shook my head and embraced her in another hug. This time, Nina hugged back. I was so happy that she was alive and well and yet still so shocked from the dream that it was no surprise why I was crying. Nina didn't pull back from the hug, and neither did I.

"_There'll be no sunlight, if I lose you, baby..._" I began to sing, mostly to myself, but I didn't doubt that Nina could hear it too. "_There'll be no clear skies, if I lose you, baby...just like the clouds, my eyes will do the same. If you walk away, everyday it will rain..._"

* * *

**v v v **

* * *

I couldn't stop thinking about the dream all day.

Nina wouldn't, either. We drove to the talk show in the car together, as if the day in the park didn't happen. I didn't know why she wasn't talking about the photograph, but I was grateful for that as we conversed about the dream I had in the car. Nina wouldn't let it go; she was interested in the reason why I drove all the way to her house in the middle of the night to make sure she was alive.

I realized that Isabelle was right; I was in love with Nina. I thought about that after I left Nina's house last night; I knew that it was just a dream afterwards, but I couldn't bear the thought that Nina had committed suicide when she was pregnant. If she had done that, I never would have met Nina; much less Emma, as Nina had killed the baby when she killed herself. I'd never be able to live with myself.

I was just glad that Nina was in the passenger seat next to me and not in a coffin in the ground. When I smiled at her across the seat, and Nina smiled back, my eyes widened and I fully believed it myself that I was in love with Nina. _I_ was in love with _Nina_. I was _in love_ with Nina. I, _Fabian Rutter_, was _in love_ with _Nina Martin_.

I smiled at her again, taking her hand when I parked the car; we were still holding hands as we walked to the studio. I opened the door for her, and she beamed at me, walking inside and taking a seat backstage. I bid her a goodbye as I met Aaron near where I enter the talk show studio.

"All right, Fabian. The person talking to you confirmed that they're going to ask you about the photograph, so just practice what I told you to say: that the woman is your friend and the toddler is her niece. People will judge her if you say daughter, and I'm sure you don't want that. Some people might not believe it, but we're not going to announce to the world that you're a father just yet." I nodded. "They're going to ask you some other things, too, like how fame is for you, how your family is, and some other things, so they proabably won't focus on the photograph too much, but just say what I told you to say and you're golden."

I nodded again, and he slapped his hand on my shoulder. "Good luck, kid." His brown eyes shone with fear as I took a deep breath and walked out on to the stage.

Aaron was right; they did ask about the photograph. We talked about the house I lived in for a little while, my friends, but eventually we came to the subject of the photograph.

"Well, Fabian," the talk show host, Taylor, began. "Last night, a photograph was taken with you in it." The photograph was shown on a big screen. Since Nina hadn't mentioned the photograph last night and all through today, I was sure this was the first time she was seeing it. By the time this interview was done, Nina was going to murder me. "Can you explain who these people are?"

"Yes," I said confidently, remembering what Aaron had told me to say. "I came to the park with one of my old friends, Nina, that I reunited with back in August. She wanted to take her dau—" I caught myself before I could say the whole word, thankfully, "She wanted to take her niece to the park, so of course I agreed to take her. While we were there, we were talking and then suddenly Nina's niece went missing and we couldn't find her. I found her stuck in the slide," I laughed to make it more lighthearted, and the audience laughed with me.

I couldn't have it looking that serious, anyway. People might analyze my slip up and find out that the little girl was my daughter, and everything we'd be working for would come crumbling down. I knew that people who knew Nina personally would know the truth, but hopefully people wouldn't be cruel as to make Nina _that_ miserable.

"Anyway, by the time I brought her niece down, Nina was crying. I was trying to make her feel better, so that was why I was holding her face like that. Her niece is safe and sound, by the way," I addressed the audience, and they cheered. It was strange, what a group of teenagers could find heroic.

"Well, Fabian," Taylor said, with a smile on her face. "I'm sure your friend appreciated it."

As the talk show ended, I could feel myself being bitten in the butt.

Nina was going to murder me, her classmates would know I was lying, I just lied to millions of people, and I was in love with Nina. My life wasn't going to be a happy one after today . . . I knew that much.

* * *

**A/N: Intense chapter, right? I do hope you enjoyed it. I'm leaving you all to think about what Nina's reaction will be to him denying everything – chapter 15 is in Nina's POV, and I'm excited to write it because I'm 100% it will torture you all hahaha **

**Aaaaaah we're so close to 100 reviews ^u^**


	15. The Threat

**A/N: Wow. I am _horrible_ with deadlines. I just finished this chapter today! I know I usually update in the mornings, but I didn't feel like waiting another week for a chapter that was already done. I promise that I'll try to get chapter 16 up by next Friday, but no promises.  
**

**Here's the chapter that leads to the end! Of course, there's 11 more chapters to go before the end, but this one really leads up to the next couple of chapters. To wrap up this Author's Note without it being awkward, I saw Big Time Rush yesterday! _Celebrities came to Long Island_! That is _huge _because no one__**** ever** comes to Long Island.  
~Lia  


* * *

~There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.~  
—Bryant H. McGill

* * *

**Nina  
Chapter 15: "The Threat"**

"Please don't be mad at me!"

Fabian came into the dull florescent lights of backstage, his arms in an X-formation, covering his face, when he caught my glare aimed at him.

"Oh, no," I growled, crossing my arms as I moved closer to him. "Why would I be mad at you? You only lied to millions of people about who I was!"

Fabian removed his shield and started to glare right back at me. "I did it to protect you!" He defended.

"How were you protecting me?" I boomed, approaching him to look him right in the eyes. I still saw that innocent charcoal-blue I remembered from three years ago, but they looked different now, somehow. "If you did anything, you put me — and yourself — in more danger!"

"I don't see how that's possible!" He screamed right back at me. Just like at the park, I didn't care if we were causing a commotion. I needed to discuss this was Fabian _now_, so we'd talk _now_.

"Do you not understand?" His voice gradually got louder with each sentence he spoke. "You are a smart girl, Nina! Think for a second! What would happen if the world knew we were parents?"

"I don't know!" I shot back. "But I just saw you talk to the whole world about me and you lied! _Lied_! I thought you were taking _responsibility_!"

"I AM!" Fabian's face was growing redder by the second, and I wasn't so sure my skin wasn't turning the same color as well. "I'M PROTECTING YOU! You might be too _dense_ to see it, but _I_ know what I'm doing! I am _protecting_ you!"

"Well, it didn't look like that from here!"

Both of our faces red, neither of us realized that there was a figure behind Fabian until he interrupted with: "I'm sorry to disrupt this...argument, but you two need to go to your car if you're going to fight like this."

The color immediately drained from Fabian's face as he turned around and asked, "What? Oh, sorry, Aaron. Yeah, we'll take this outside. Sorry for bothering you." He turned around, glared at me once more, and started to lead me out the door.

When we reached the exit, Fabian's father pulled him aside. Mr. Rutter waved at me, to tell me they'd just be a second, but with me being the snoop I was, I leaned my ear against the door, trying to listen in, and luckily (for me), I could hear parts of their conversation.

"...Well, I don't think of her that way!" I heard Fabian's voice scream. I figured they were talking about me, so I leaned in closer.

Mr. Rutter's voice was exclaiming, "Well, you'll have to, son! Look what she's caused!"

"This is not her fault!" Fabian's voice seemed even more pissed off than he was when _we_ were arguing. "We were at the park, and—"

"And who suggested they go to the park?"

"That is_ unnecessary_, dad!" There was footsteps, as if he was pacing the room. "We were at the park, when suddenly Emma — who is _our_ daughter, not just Nina's — went missing, so we searched for her. Eventually, we found her — not that you'd care if your granddaughter died or anything — but Nina was distressed, so I comforted her, trying to be a _father _and a_ supportive parent,_ which I _am_! This is not her fault in the slightest! So stop telling me to think of her as a mistake!"

"Fabian, this girl _is_ a mistake!"

"_This girl_ has a name! And her name is Nina Anne Martin, who is the most amazingly, astounding, wonderful girl — woman — that I've ever known. And—"

"Fabian Rutter, when you were sixteen, you had sex with a girl you barely knew. You were a teenager. Teenagers do crazy things. I bet you were together for a few hours! And you don't consider he a mistake?"

"No, I don't! I have no idea why you can't get it through your thick head, but our night together produced Emma Grace Martin, who is my daughter, my child. Emma is also your granddaughter! I have no idea why you're so against them instead of wanting to meet them! Mum wants to meet them!"

"That's because your mother is—"

"Dad, that's enough. I have to take Nina home now, so I hope you can understand that I'm taking responsibility for everything I did." By now, I started to back away so they didn't know I was listening in the first place. "Oh, and by the way, I just thought you should know that back in 2009, I was the one to start unhooking Nina's bra strap. Okay, see you later!"

He slammed the door in his father's face and took a deep breath. I tried to play it off that I was busy with my phone, and I was so caught up in typing nonsense that I actually jumped when Fabian tapped my shoulder.

He released a weak laugh. "You ready to go?"

Trying to forget what I just heard, I nodded, forced a smile, and followed him out into the parking lot.

So many things were running through my head involving Fabian at the moment that I didn't know what I was thinking. I was mad at him for denying everything — but I was impressed with him by handling things with his father so maturely — then I was angry with his family for considering me as a mistake — then I loved Fabian for saying that I _wasn't_ a mistake —

"Nina?" Fabian's voice brought me back to reality as we drove out of the parking lot. I addressed him, and Fabian continued, "Are you okay? You seem kind of troubled."

"Well, I'm still mad about the photograph thing," I stated simply, looking him in the eyes again. His face was something I loved to look at. I wasn't going to bring the subject about his father up, and I didn't think Fabian was either, so I just left it alone.

He sighed, digging his nails into the steering wheel. "I don't want to fight again," He said finally, after a few moments' silence. "But all I'm going to say on the subject is that I was trying to protect you. Fans can be cruel. If they knew you were the mother of my child, they'd attack you and you'd never see the sunlight again. Trust me, Nina, I was—"

"Okay, okay," I interrupted him. "I understand. Thank you."

He smiled at me, a genuine smile, not forced or anything. But when he saw the annoyed look still plastered on my face, he sighed again and turned a corner. "Hey, Nina?"

"Yeah?"

"If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together."

I snorted, looked and him and asked, "What?" a small smile forming on my face.

Fabian kept his eyes on the road, but he laughed and answered, "Trying to cheer you up with some cheesy pick-up lines! Here, I've got another: I've got Skittles in my mouth, want to taste the rainbow?"

I laughed at that one. Instead of kissing his mouth, I leaned over and kissed on him on the cheek. As I sat back down in my seat, I could have sworn I saw him blush.

"Don't go away, because I have more!" He laughed along with me. "Can I have your picture? I need to show Santa what I want for Christmas. Do your legs hurt? Because you've been running through my mind all day. I think I'm lost, so can you give me directions to wherever you're going? Hey, I'm Mr. Right—someone said you were looking for me. You're so hot, you could make the devil sweat."

I was laughing so hard that I was surprised I didn't get a cramp. Fabian continued to recite horrible pick-up lines, and I felt myself fall in love with him harder all the way home.

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, I didn't expect my life to change the way it did.

When I got home, I was tired from everything that happened yesterday, so I went to sleep; I didn't think to answer Eddie or Mara's messages. The first thing I did when I woke up, though, was open my laptop. The date read October 29th, 2012 as I clicked my email. Fabian wasn't online, nor was there was an Instant Message, so I closed the laptop and picked Emma up out of her crib.

"Yeah..." I muttered, pushing her up in my arms so she didn't slip. "Oh, Emma, you cause me so much trouble." She laughed, her small baby teeth showing. I set my daughter on the floor, holding her hand, trailing along the hallway with me.

"Good morning, honey," my grandmother greeted. "How are you today?"

"Fine," I answered casually, getting up to pour myself some cereal. I smiled to myself, remembering yesterday — the argument Fabian and I had, Mr. Rutter saying all I was to him was a mistake — the cheesy pick-up lines...I knew something had changed between us, whether it be external or internal, I didn't know.

My phone beeped: A message from Mara. It read:** Do you want to walk to the bus stop together?**

Mara usually walked to the bus stop alone, because she was caught up in her book or schoolwork; to say the least, her request surprised me, but of course I didn't decline. I responded with: **Will Eddie be joining us?**

Her response to that was: **NO THANK THE LORD**

When the time came, I joined Mara at the corner between our houses. "Any particular reason you wanted to meet up with me this morning?" I questioned, and Mara shook her head.

"No. Just wanted to see my best friend," she said, punching my arm playfully. I smiled, even though I was confused, and started to walk to the bus stop, my rucksack bouncing against my side.

"Why isn't Eddie with us?" I asked, looking over my shoulder to see his house, sitting right beside mine. We'd been next-door neighbors since we were thirteen, so we'd always walked to school with us.

"Yeah, well, I asked him politely if he could leave us alone this morning so he agreed. Is that a problem?"

"No, no," I defended holding my hands up. Mara was one of those people that seemed nice and sweet, but if you got her angry, she was one creepy motherfucker. "No, it's not a problem. Just wondering."

"Good. So, where were you yesterday? I was looking for you and I couldn't get in touch with you. Is there any particular reason...?"

Trying to hide my smile but at the same time still pissed off at him, I answered, "I was with Fabian. We—"

"Hey, look!" Mara announced, breaking my sentence off. "Look at that leaf on the tree?"

I already knew she was trying to change the subject. "What's so good about that leaf on the tree?

"Just...look at it! We're almost in November and no leaves have changed color yet, but that one has! Isn't it extraordinary?"

"Yeah, I guess...so, are you ready for the test Mr. LaBella is going to give us today?" Mara nodded and started to talk about how she had studied for that test for one month straight and that she'd ace it, but by the time she started to recite the states in the USA, I zoned out. I started to think about what my relationship with Fabian — where were we going to go? Forward? Back? Was yesterday a good point in our relationship, or a bad point?

Fabian told me to think of anything but what the fans were saying about me. I knew he couldn't change how his fans acted, but I also knew how the One Direction fans would act if "Niall" ever got a girlfriend. They'd flip shit. And if the rumor that Emma was Fabian's child spread around, Fabian was right: I'd never see the daylight again. I needed to ignore them...

But if there was one thing I realized, was that I needed Fabian more than ever right now. I didn't know how a photograph could start something that wonderful and another photograph could take it away, but Fabian Rutter was something that I needed in my life.

And if I was being honest with myself, I loved him as more than a friend. I knew that Fabian didn't feel the same way; he was always busy, had Mick, Jerome, and Alfie as his best friends, and probably still loved his old girlfriend, who he had to break up with for the press, but I loved him. I'd probably always love him, because my mother told me that there was no such word as "loved"; if you stopped loving someone, you never truly loved them in the first place.

"Anyway, Fabian and I were out, and in the car he told me this _ridiculous_ pick-up—"

"Could we please not talk about Fabian?" Mara begged; her eyes were pleading. I'd always known that Mara was paranoid — she would scream if I creaked the floorboards trying to get to the bathroom at our sleepover — but something in her eyes showed that this wasn't embarrassment over how she acted when Fabian surprised me with his appearance a few weeks ago.

I didn't know why she was trying to avert my thoughts from Emma's father, but if Mara could change the subject, I could too. "Hey, Mara, remember when you had a crush on Eddie?"

She groaned, and I laughed as I started to walk faster to the corner where the bus would come in only a few minutes. "Don't bring it up," she muttered under her breath.

"Oh, come on!" I pushed her. "You told me you had a crush on him like every single day! You two were working on a school project together, and you spent the night at his house...and then..."

"Ugh, Nina, shut up!" She yelled, but that only made me laugh harder. "I was thirteen years old!"

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

"Rise and shine, girls! Today is a brand new day for new opportunities and chances!"

"Stop being Mr. Sunshine, Eddie, please," Mara stated as she walked past him. "Besides, it's cloudy today. And cold. Very cold."

"That's because you live in Britain," Eddie said, as if the answer was obvious. His blonde hair, usually up in a spike, was glued to his forehead; he had probably taken a shower before coming to school. "It's always cold in Britain. That's you why you should move to Los Angeles! It's _always_ sunny in Los Angeles!"

"It's always _hot_ in Los Angeles!" Mara argued, coming back to face Eddie again. I loved hanging around Eddie and Mara; they were always a riot to be around. Eddie pushed Mara's limits and Mara could do nothing about it; even though she was the oldest out of the three of us, having been born in December of 1994 while Eddie and I were born in 1995, Eddie constantly tormented the poor girl; he once dressed up as a ghost and scared the living shit out of Mara — she peed her pants — and Eddie still didn't let Mara hear the end of it to this day.

"Yeah, but it's not below freezing in LA!" Eddie began, but I butted in with: "You should move to Florida. Everyone thinks it's like a thousand degrees but it storms like every day. Then again, I don't know if Mara could handle that...every day I'd hear screaming coming from her bedroom..."

A girl passed by us; she caught sight of me, raised her eyebrows, and turned back to her friend that was walking beside her. I quickly checked my outfit; my bra wasn't showing, my shirt and pants matched, and — luckily — there was no spinach in my teeth. Why were they laughing at me?

"Ugh," Mara groaned again, leading us to her first period classroom. Unfortunately, Eddie, Mara, and I didn't have any classes together except for lunch, so after the bell rang, we wouldn't see each other for another couple of hours. Mara continued, "Is this Pick-On-Mara Day or something?"

"Oh, sweetie," Eddie cooed, petting her hair. "It's _always_ Pick-On-Mara Day."

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

By lunchtime, I was hopelessly confused.

There were four periods before lunch, so there was three hours for people to look and point at me. I didn't know what the problem was — I wasn't doing anything to annoy them — not to mention that plenty of people were pointing and staring. What happened?

"Yum," Eddie mutters as he sat down across from me, his chicken teriyaki wrap sitting on his plate. "I cannot wait to eat this." I laughed; I knew that the teriyaki wrap was his favorite meal the school cooked, but since he overslept, he didn't have time to eat breakfast.

"Don't look now," Mara whispered, sitting next to me, her fruit spilling juice over the table, "but those girls across from us are staring at us."

I sighed, brought a forkful of peas into my mouth and chewed angrily, trying not to look at the girls looking at us. It had been happening all day, and I didn't have the slightest idea why.

"Do you want me to punch 'em?" Eddie asked, starting to sit up, but I gave him the _don't-you-dare_ look and he sat back down, grumbling to himself.

"I don't get it," Mara muttered, and when Eddie asked what she meant, she answered with, "Eddie, you're not scared of anything. I stayed at your house that day when we were thirteen" — now Mara sent _me_ the _don't-you-dare_ look and I had to hold in a laugh — "and we were tracking ghosts; I had to close my eyes to stop myself from screaming, and you didn't seem the least bit scared. It seems like the only thing you're scared of is the girl sitting next to me."

Eddie, eyes wide, sat up, looked Mara straight in the eyes and said, "Nina is fucking terrifying, okay? _Terrifying_."

"Then why are you friends? And how did you meet?" she wondered, taking a sip from her water bottle.

I laughed. "Well, we were thirteen, and I had just moved to Liverpool only a few weeks ago. Gran and I were going to the grocery store to buy some food, as we had just moved in, but then some bitchy jocks pushed a cart my way. I told Gran to look out, but before we could get out of the way, someone came and took the blow for me; he ran in front of the cart and was knocked to the ground. Obviously, it was Eddie, and ever since then we've just been friends."

"And I'm going to take the blow for you again today," Eddie growled, getting out of my seat, but before I could get him to sit down again, he went over to the table with the girls and started to talk to them. Mara and I watched him argue and scream with them before he sat down next to us again.

"What was the problem?" I asked, and when I saw Eddie and Mara share a long look, I knew something was up. "Guys, come on. Just tell me. Is my bra showing? Do I have spinach in my teeth? What's wrong with me?"

"Oh, nothing's wrong with you," Mara stated simply. "It's — well — how do I say it...remember how this morning you were telling me that you were with Fabian yesterday?" When I nodded, Mara continued. "Well, a photograph was taken of you, him, and Emma a few days ago. And he denied who you were at a talk-show yesterday. I didn't want to tell you because you'd be mad at me."

I sighed, avoided Mara's gaze for a minute, but eventually found the composure to speak. "Oh, I know."

Mara looked beyond shocked. "You _know_?"

"Of course I know," I remarked. "I was with him when the photograph was taken. I was also with him when he denied having anything to do with me...So, I know. Is that why everyone is staring at me? Because Fabian was comforting me because I lost my daughter?"

"You lost Emma?" Mara shrieked, making someone from another table look over at us.

"Yeah...why?"

"That's not the rumor going around," she said, and I knew I was going to hear what people have been saying about me during the weekend. "Well, people didn't know who you were at first; they said you were a friend, they said you were a girlfriend, they said you were just a random person at the park at the same time he was. No one really knew why he was at that park, though — everyone, and I mean everyone, denied that the toddler in his arms could have been his daughter.

"Then people from this school got into the picture. They confirmed that the little girl in the picture was the woman's daughter — don't ask me what they said about you, please, because I think I'd cry — but after that everyone was like _Oh, no! That couldn't be his daughter! He must have been helping that woman! _But people wondered who you were to him...most said you were a girlfriend...and people were cruel...they said some mean things about you, just because you might have been his girlfriend..."

"Wonderful," I muttered, ducking my head so Eddie and Mara wouldn't see me cry. Just wonderful."

"It's okay, Ninesy-poo," Eddie said. "We're here for you."

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

It just got worse after that.

The day dragged on, and I was forced to try and ignore everyone who was pointing or laughing at me. I didn't know what they were saying — and frankly, I knew it would be better if I never knew — but I didn't know how a simple photograph could cause that much hate. I was sure that some people who were laughing weren't even fans of Fabian; they just felt like they had to laugh at me.

I had been laughed at before; when I was pregnant, when I gave birth — being a teen mom in high school wasn't fun. Everyone who wasn't Eddie and Mara thought that I still didn't know who Emma's father was; like I've said before, no one would believe me if I said that Fabian, who is popular around here and most commonly known at my school, was the father, people would treat me worse than I was being treated right after I gave birth.

After school, I walked home, said hello to my grandmother and my daughter, and checked my laptop. I had one IM from Fabian: **How was school today?**

My hands were on the keyboard, ready to type; but I never pressed a key. If I responded, we would have to start a conversation — I'd have to tell him about what people were saying about me — it wouldn't be pretty. On the bus ride home, Mara had shown me Twitter; some of the things people called me were unrepeatable. But it didn't really faze me...it was just like 2010 all over again.

So instead of answering Fabian, who could probably help me, I decided to check Twitter again and check more of the messages people were sending out, involving the photo of Fabian, Emma, and myself at the park.

_"She's a teen mom? So irresponsible."_

_"That tramp better not go near Fabian! He deserves better!"_

_"Whore. Fabian doesn't want you so stop trying to get him."_

I held my breath, looking through more and more messages; eventually, I just closed the laptop and went to sleep. I missed dinner and another episode of my favorite television program, but I didn't really care. Fabian would send more emails, Fabian and Mara would send more text messages, and the names would continue.

I wasn't going to break down at the hand of those people, though. I knew I was stronger than that. Besides, all fans of popular singers go through a phase of "She's not his girlfriend! No way!" Before accepting that he actually likes her and moving on.

I knew that wasn't the case with Fabian, though. If word got out that we were a family, my life would take a left turn.

By the time I woke up, my phone displayed: _New message from_ Mara (70).

I almost laughed at the number. I knew Mara was a worrywart, but she shouldn't have been sending me seventy text messages. All of them were short messages, reading "ARE YOU OKAY?!" or "If you don't answer me I will come to your house and slaughter you in your sleep". I finally responded to them, telling Mara I was fine and that she shouldn't be so paranoid.

There was more laughing and pointing when Eddie, Mara, and I walked through the doors of the school, but I didn't care. I ignored them. To be quite honest, it was Eddie who was being the worst.

I didn't know what it was — it might have been his protective nature, but I think he took things too far. One group of girls looked at us and muttered, "Ugh", and that simple word set Eddie off. He started to curse and scream at them — he was sent to the guidance counselor because a teacher caught him cursing the girls out.

Mara and I were laughing at him at lunch again. "Shut up!" he muttered, lowering his voice so no one would hear him. "I'm sick and tired of people pointing at her all. Fricking. Day. You know?"

"Oh, yeah," Mara said, laughing again, and after she calmed down another girl walked to us. I didn't recognize her; our school was huge, and most of the people who were younger than us — Eddie, Mara, and I were in year 12, so we were the oldest group in the school — stayed in different halls, so it was no wonder why I didn't recognize her face.

"I've heard that you're the teen mother in the photograph?" she asked, pointing at me. I nodded, and the girl continued, "Well, I'm not going to say that you can't like his music or anything, but stay away from him. No one would ever like someone who get pregnant when they were fifteen," she sneered.

"Uh, excuse me?" Eddie piped, raising his hand. I was prepared to bury my head in my hands in shame when he announced, "I had a crush on her when I was fifteen."

At that, the girl gave a confused look and walked away. I wasn't surprised at Eddie's statement — I knew that he had a crush on me — mostly because I had one on him too. In fact, he was my first kiss. Eventually, though, we came to realize that we'd do better as friends and everything had been mutual since. He was my best friend besides Mara, and I was sure that I was his friend too.

Eddie and I hadn't dated; his first girlfriend, he told me, was Patricia Williamson — and Patricia was also his _current_ girlfriend.

"Hey, babe," Eddie greeted as Patricia took her seat next to her boyfriend. She planted a quick kiss on his lips, and Mara and I turned away. Patricia wasn't just cruel to me — she was cruel to Mara as well — and to everyone else in the school besides Joy Mercer and Eddie.

"Why are you sitting next to _her_?" she sneered, pointing to me, but I pretended not to notice.

"Because she is my _friend_," Eddie stated, as if the answer was obvious. "Patty, we've been through this—"

"I've told you like a million times _not_ to call me Patty."

Eddie took a deep breath; I knew that Patricia could be a pain in the ass to him sometimes, but they always seemed to pull through as a couple. "Patricia, we've been through this. Mara and Nina are my _friends_. As in, I like spending time with them."

"But Joy told me that Nina was with Fabian Rutter the other day," she pleaded, as if that statement would make Eddie run away from me. "You know, the famous singer. I don't know why you spend time with her in the first place! She's a teen mother! She's irresponsible!"

"She met a guy she really liked!"

"And I bet she doesn't even know who that guy is, does she?" Patricia fought back. I could see Eddie trying to yell back at her "YES SHE DOES!" but he kept his mouth shut. "That's exactly what I'm saying. My friend, Joy, really likes Fabian and his music. It's obvious that you're just trying to get his attention and pity, because you don't know who the father is? _Oh, poor me! I'm a teen mother without a father! I'm an orphan! Oh, woe is me!_ Well, newsflash, honey; no one cares. Stop trying to move in on Fabian."

I was silent, staring at the lump of food on my tray; I could hear Eddie having a silent conversation with her, but I was too lazy and depressed to hear what they were saying.

"Exactly!" Patricia finalized their conversation, standing up. "I'm going back to my table now. Eddie, I hope you wisen up and realize that Mara and Nina aren't worth your time and leave them; also, Nina, just a reminder that if you ever step towards Fabian again, you're dead meat."

I rolled my eyes as she started to walk away, but Mara took the liberty to speak up. "Yeah, well, for your information, Nina _has_ found the father! Oh, god!" She seemed to realize what she said as my eyes widened and I started to curse Mara out under my breath.

"Oh, really?" Patricia wondered. "And who is that?"

I was tempted to scream "FABIAN RUTTER!" But I knew that would only hurt me instead of help me in this situation.

I quickly thought up a lie: "Um...Matthew...Wilson. Yeah, Matthew Wilson."

"And when did you reunite with him?" Patricia was obviously disbelieving; I would be, too, if I heard someone talk the way I did.

"Um...sometime in Aug—"

"It's none of your business, Patricia," Eddie sneered; it was funny how their relationship worked. "Just leave her alone and go back to your table."

Patricia sighed and looked over to where Joy was sitting alone; she was talking to someone else. Right when I thought that she was going to go back, Patricia looked at me and said, "Nina, can we go out back? Into the courtyard?"

I nodded, despite Eddie's protests, and followed Patricia out of the cafeteria and into the courtyard. "What's wrong?" I asked. "I thought you didn't like Fabian?"

"No, I don't, really," she announced, and I lifted my shoulders in a questioning way, as if to say _Then what's the problem?_

"Look," she began, "I love Eddie. I really do. True, we fight like ninety-nine percent of the time, but I really do love him. I don't like him spending time with you and Mara."

"What's wrong with Mara?" I questioning, my voice getting louder with each sentence. "She's probably the most innocent girl you'll ever meet."

"Oh, nothing much. The problem is mostly you," she sneered again. "What I'm saying is that Eddie deserves better than you for a friend. You're a teen mother, and frankly I don't believe you actually met this 'Matthew Wilson', but anyway, I want you stay away from Eddie and if I ever see another photo with you and Fabian, then you won't look as pretty as you do right now."

"Is that a threat?"

"It certainly is," she said, and her fist collided with my nose.

The first thing I felt was the pain. "Ow!" I screamed, and I saw Patricia laugh as she walked away.

My hand on my nose, I tried to walk back into the school, but Eddie came outside. "What the hell, Patricia?" he yelled, and put his hands around my shoulders. "Are you okay?" he asked, and I nodded. "All right, let's get you to the hospital."

"Hospital?" I shrieked, still holding my nose as I looked up at the boy who towered above me. "Why? No! I don't need to go to the hospital!"

"Yeah, well, I'm taking you there anyway to get you checked out. I don't know how much damage Patty did to your nose," he grunted. "Man, that woman is a pain in the ass."

A few minutes after we got permission to leave the school, we were on the highway headed to the hospital. Eddie grabbed his phone from his pocket, dialed a number I didn't recognize, and called it. He lowered the volume so I couldn't hear the voice; Eddie started the conversation with: "Hey, you there...yeah, it's me. Yeah, um...could you come to the hospital? No, no, everything is fine, she's fine, I just think it would be good if you there with us, you know..." He looked at me, holding my nose, my eyebrows raised. "You know, to give us a ride home. . . . yeah, okay, thanks, meet us at the hospital! Okay, bye!" He hung up.

"What was that?" I asked, trying not to put too much pressure on my nose.

Eddie quickly pressed some buttons on his phone, then sent me a glance and announced, "Oh, that was my dad. I just. . . . um, I thought, we might need a ride home if, like, your nose is completely broken and you need to stay overnight. . . . me and Mara would need a ride home!" I rolled my eyes and turned away; I didn't know why Eddie was lying. I might not have been the best liar, but I could definitely see through a lie.

Mara was in the car ride with us, which I should have voted against. Every five minutes, she kept asking if I was okay, which I answered every time with "yes".

Eventually, her questions stopped and we arrived at the hospital — we were told to sit down and wait for a doctor to come and call us — so Mara and I took a magazine from a stand and started to flip through it, occasionally commenting on something we thought was pretty and/or ridiculous, and Eddie started playing with a yo-yo.

"Yeah, completely photoshopped," I agreed, turning another page. I was looking at a ridiculously skinny model when a doctor finally called me into another room. Mara and Eddie followed; eventually, after a few minutes of inspection, the doctor came to the conclusion that my nose was fine, only bruised, and not broken in the slightest. Mara looked like the world had just been lifted off her shoulders.

I was just getting out of the seat I was in when a figure walked through the door. I looked up, only to see Fabian Rutter once again. "Nina?" he asked, finally seeing me and running to me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." I said, looking around and seeing that Eddie was ducking out of sight. "I'm fine. Why are you here?"

"No reason," he said, touching my shoulder. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

I smiled.

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

Wednesday was Halloween, which Eddie found completely entertaining by dressing up and once again scaring the shit out of Mara and me. I was at school, of course, and the teasing and pointing ensued, but I ignored it.

Thursday was when it really got out of hand. People at school now avoided me; they claimed that I _paid_ Fabian to be seen with me so people could take a picture — or that I was so obsessed with Fabian that I'd do anything to get his attention, even putting my poor two-year-old in a slide; some even claimed they called the police on me for abusing my child.

I didn't know what I was going to do. They laughed at me, calling me every bad name they could think of; slut, whore, tramp, attention-seeker, you name it. Eddie and Mara tried to calm me down, but they didn't help.

I didn't help myself by checking fan websites when I got home. The photo of me and Fabian was swirling; on Twitter, Facebook, and every other social site. My classmates weren't the only ones calling me names; these strangers on the internet went much further with words.

One person even cursed me out. I saw threats — and even a couple death threats.

"Nina, it's going to be okay," Eddie attempted to calm me down over the phone. "Just take a deep breath. One...two...come on, just don't think about it. They're worthless, okay? You don't even know these people."

"Exactly!" I screamed, pacing to and from in my bedroom. "I don't even know these people, and they're calling me a slut and a tramp just because I'm a teen mother and Fabian is touching my cheek! One girl even threatened to kill me if she saw me in another photo with Fabian!"

"Relax, Nina!" Eddie screamed; I knew he was getting anxious with my behavior. "Just relax, okay? She's not serious. I don't think a teenager would come and kill you just because you're involved with Fabian. All of those people don't even know the relationship you have with him! They don't know what you two have! They're just rumors!"

I held the phone between my ear and my shoulder so I didn't have to hold it in my hands. "I . . . I just . . . I can't do it, Eddie. I can't do it. I'm not a tramp, I'm really not!"

"I know you're not."

I got out my laptop, refusing to answer Fabian's attempts to get in touch with me; he said that he had given Eddie his number a few weeks ago, and they had been in touch since. But I knew that if I got in touch with Fabian again, I wouldn't be able to last the night. I'd just cry myself to sleep if I had to remember everything I went through.

Instead, I checked what people were saying about me again. The curses and the death threats couldn't get much worse than what they already were.

Friday was the last straw.

So I packed up my bags, kissed Emma on the forehead, left a note for Eddie, Fabian, and Mara, and Gran and I were off to wherever we were going.

**Next chapter: The Note (16). Obviously, it kind of speaks for itself, but Eddie and Mara meet Team Fabian for the first time! The next couple of chapters will be so fun to write — I know that you guys will like them! I also have a surprise planned for you in chapter 25, the second-to-last chapter...just you wait and see...**


	16. The Note

**A/N: I am HORRIBLE.**

**Never trust me again. If I say I'll update in a week, I'm most likely lying. But this time I actually have a reason other than laziness: my adapter for my laptop broke, so I was forced to use the dinosaur computer we have. It was SO HARD to type on that damn thing, so eventually I gave up; it didn't help when weeks came and went and then the dinosaur computer BROKE. Just today, August 3rd, I finally got the adapter, so I promise I'll write all day today and tomorrow because I know you guys have been dying for an update. I made this chapter especially long for you guys, so here's a treat until the next update (Whenever _that_ is.)**

**Seriously, though, guys, if you want an update, find a way to contact me. Shoot me a PM on here, leave a review, or send me a message on my tumblr account (queen-sallyjackson). I'm on Tumblr a lot, so that's a definite way to get in touch with me if you want to scream at me for late updates.**

**But seriously Big Time Rush ended the other week and I just can't I've been with them since I was 11 and both of my shows ended and I just can'ttttt**

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

"Mate, relax. Everything's going to be fine. Nina's tough!" Mick attempted to persuade me as his football game blasted from the telly. A few minutes ago, I had ringed Mick and told him how worried I was about Nina and all the hate she was getting on social websites. It had only been a few days since the photograph of us at the park had been taken, but rumors were swirling; and I could have sworn I saw our faces on the local news before Rosie turned the channel off.

"No, you don't understand!" I protested, pushing myself off the couch. "I know she's tough, obviously, but everyone has a breaking point. Fans can be cruel, and unfortunately there's nothing I can do about it. What if Nina sees all the hate and mean things people are saying about her — all because of a photograph, may I add — and...like...leaves?" I grabbed my hair as I paced the room, looking at the brown hardwood floor.

Mick narrowed his eyes, turning the volume of the television a little bit lower. "Fabian, are you suggestion that you think Nina might kill—"

"Yes, I am suggesting that," I muttered, sitting down next to Mick again. I buried my head in my hands, ashamed to look up.

"Don't think like that!" He commanded, placing his hand on my shoulder before I could continue. "I haven't seen Nina all that much, nor have I spoken to her or know how she's like. But from what you've told me in these past two months, she's the toughest girl I know and I barely even know her." He took a deep breath. "Nina will, obviously, see the hate on her, but I don't think it will affect her. _She won't kill herself_."

"Look, I know it may sound stupid," I muttered through my hands, still reluctant to look up and face the truth. "But a couple of nights ago, I had a bad dream that Nina committed suicide when she was pregnant, killing herself and the baby..."

Mick was silent, so I continued. "I know that didn't happen and that it was just a dream, but what if it did? I wasn't in Nina's life when she was pregnant. If . . . if she actually did kill herself . . . I wouldn't have known her. Emma wouldn't exist. I wouldn't have a daughter..."

After waiting a minute, Mick sighed. "Fabian, I have no idea how you must feel. I'm not famous. I'm not the one in the photograph with the mother of my child and I'm not the one who had to lie to the whole world about the girl I'm in love with."

"Hey, I'm not in love with—"

"Fabian, don't try to deny it," Mick laughed, sitting back against the couch to relax, like this whole conversation didn't affect him at all. "I haven't seen you two together but I can tell, and I'm the one that's 'hopeless' when it comes to love, according to Amber."

I glanced over at Mick, and he was smirking. "Is it really that obvious?" I muttered, and Mick, who was already smirking, chuckled.

"Mate, Amber's known it since the day you first said her name. I don't know how — and one thing I learned when I was dating Amber was to never question her — but you should stop denying it. You've told me before that you want to initiate a relationship with her, so go for it."

I blinked. "Mick, do you really think starting a relationship with her at this time is a good idea?"

"Yeah, you're right," he said suddenly, and I closed my eyes for a second. "Have you gotten in touch with her?" Mick asked, and I shook my head. Nina wouldn't answer my IM's yesterday, so I was alone all night. I had ignored my sisters; all of them tried to question me about what happened with Nina before the photograph and what had happened in the two and a half months we had known each other.

"Well, Fabian, you have to do something about your relationship with Nina. People are starting to suspect about you two — I saw someone on Twitter who thought that you two were dating and another one who thought you two were a family. You need to do something about it, Fabian. Denying her in public — which was a really shitty move, by the way — wasn't enough."

"I know — I just —" Mick waited for me to continue, so I took a deep breath and tried again. "I have to protect her."

* * *

**v v v**

* * *

**Hey! You'd be out of school by now, so...Happy Halloween! Are you going out with Eddie and Mara?** [sent _Oct.31, 3:32 pm]_  
_Unread_ by Nina Martin

**Well, you haven't answered me...you're either out w/ your friends or ignoring me...** [sent _Oct.31, 9:47 pm_]  
_Unread_ by Nina Martin

**Hey, how are you? We haven't talked in a day or two...what's up? Are you alright?** [sent _Nov.1, 5:54 pm_]  
_Unread_ by Nina Martin

**Hmmm...I wonder what's up with Nina and why she isn't answering me...?** [sent _Nov.2, 8:23 am_]  
_Unread_ by Nina Martin

**You're out of school again...and you still haven't answered me...are you mad at me? Seriously, Nina...** [sent _Nov.2, 2:45 pm_]  
_Unread_ by Nina Martin

**I'm getting worried now. If you don't respond by tomorrow, I'm coming to your house. I'm worried about you, Nina. Are you still mad at me? We need to work things out; we're a family now, remember? We have Emma...I'm a father...I told you I needed to take responsibility and that's what I'm doing so where on Earth are you?** [sent _Nov.2, 7:56 pm_]  
_Unread_ by Nina Martin

**I'm scared for you now. Please answer back: I just need to know you're okay.** [sent _Nov.3, 6:30 am_]  
_Unread_ by Nina Martin

.

When she still didn't respond, that's when I took action. I didn't know what to do — she might have been kidnapped, for all I knew — so I gathered a whole rucksack full of random things: bandages, granola bars, torches, et cetera. I was well prepared, at least, for the rescue but definitely not the fight.

I parked my grey car in front of her house and slammed the door shut. My heart was pounding, not knowing what I was expecting, but as I walked on the dewy lawn, I heard a noise from inside the house. I couldn't help noticing that my car was the only one in front of her house; usually, her grandmother's car was in front. Nina didn't have her driver's license yet; she was pregnant with Emma when she could have taken it and she chose not to, so her grandmother was the only one with a car, and her grandmother's car was not in the driveway.

I took a deep breath when I reached the house. There was definitely sounds coming from inside; was her grandmother just getting milk and Nina was on the phone with Eddie or Mara? Was it the sound of Nina's scream as a psycho rapist tortured her for information on me?

I knew it was my paranoia, but after the theory that she might have been tortured because of me, I reached for the key under the mat and unlocked the door.

"Nina?" I called out, but no one answered. When I stepped inside the doorway, I identified the sound as crying; I didn't know who was crying, but the sobs sounded_ guiltier_ instead of _upset_.

I held my breath as I walked further in. My heart was pounding out of my chest; in the past few months, I had only known Nina as the strong teen mother who didn't let anything shake or break her. I didn't know what I would do if she was the one crying. "Oh, it's okay..." I muttered, mostly to myself, but when I saw the truth about who was crying, I felt like the world was lifted off my shoulders.

It wasn't Nina, after all. It was Mara who was crying; she was standing up, pacing the kitchen back and forth. Eddie was there, also: he was trying to get Mara to calm down. Not knowing what I was doing, I put my back against the wall and listened in. If my dream was coming true —... if Nina actually did commit suicide —

"Mara, calm yourself down!" Eddie yelled once Mara's sobs had increased in volume. "It was just a plate! No one is going to be mad at you! Relax!"

I was so happy to hear that Mara was crying because she had broken a plate and not because her best friend had killed herself. A huge weight had just been lifted off my shoulders and my chest didn't feel so heavy anymore.

"It looked expensive!" Mara was trying to argue back. I closed my eyes in guilt; I had broken a plate in this house a few weeks prior, when I was over seeing Nina and Emma, and no one had gotten angry or exasperated. I wanted to help Mara because if she was Nina's friend, she'd know that she wouldn't be angry; but Eddie beat me to it.

"Shh..." he attempted to calm her down, but even though I wasn't looking at them, I could clearly hear that Eddie was holding himself back from laughing. "It's going to be fine. I'll try to convince them not to murder you." Eddie started laughing at his own joke (It was scary how different I was from him but at the same time so similar). "That is, if we know where they went...I haven't heard from Nina in twenty-four hours..."

"You haven't?" Mara sniffled; she had apparently stopped crying. "Why? You're best friends."

"Yeah, I know, which is why that's weird..." he mused. I heard footsteps from the other side of the wall, and I knew Eddie was pacing too. "Well, whatever, I guess. I'll call her again."

"Daddy!" a voice said from below; I looked down to see my daughter tugging at my pant leg. The kitchen had suddenly become quiet after that; had Eddie and Mara heard Emma? Did they know I was here?

I motioned for Emma to be quiet by putting a finger over my lips. I didn't know why my daughter was here, alone, without her mother, but I didn't dwell on that too much; the world had just been shoved back on my shoulders. I didn't know what I would do if Eddie and Mara saw me.

Eddie and I had exchanged numbers a few weeks prior so I could stay in touch if anything happened — he called me when Eddie and Mara had brought Nina to the hospital because his girlfriend had punched her nose — I didn't feel any better because he said the fight was because of me. I understood why Eddie wouldn't give me Nina's number, but I was still mad about the fact that the mother of my child refused to stay in touch with me. It would be so much easier if I had her number so I could call her on her mobile phone instead of chatting with her over a computer screen.

Unfortunately the two-year-old Emma didn't understand by gesture. "Daddy!" she exclaimed, ruining my life. "Hi!"

"Hi," I muttered, trying to be a good father and quiet at the same time so Eddie and Mara didn't know I was here. I heart footsteps approaching the spot where I stood and I knew that they would see me.

"Daddy! Hi!" Emma exclaimed, and I knew I was a goner when the footsteps stopped. I cringed, feeling Emma's grip on my pant leg tighten, and groaned when I heard a voice say, "Hello, Fabian."

I opened one eye to see Eddie with his hands on his hips.

"Hey!" I greeted. "What's up? Haven't seen you guys in a while…" I attempted to change the subject from me, so when I saw Mara hiding behind Eddie again, I said, "Mara, it's fine. I don't know why you're so afraid of me, but I'm not going to bite you. In fact, I think I bite myself most of the time…"

I saw Mara laugh behind the boy, but Eddie wasn't finished. "Fabian, what are you doing here?"

I shrugged, picking Emma up and holding her in my arms. "Same as you, I guess. Looking for Nina. She hasn't answered me since I met you guys in the hospital."

"Really?" Eddie widened his eyes. "Hm. I would've thought that she'd _want_ to talk to you after everything that happened…"

"'Everything that happened'?" I questioned, and this time Eddie was the one to cringe and hide. "Seriously, guys. What happened? Was it bad? Oh, God, was it because of me and the photograph? Did your girlfriend a fan of mine and punched Nina's nose because of the photograph?"

"Well, actually, my girlfriend's best friend is a fan of yours, but that doesn't really matter," Eddie explained, starting to back behind Mara. I heard him mutter "Oh, that wasn't a good idea to say" before he clearly enunciated, "Yes, it was because of you. A lot of people were looking and pointing at her, teasing and making fun of her. I thought she would want to talk to you because you're Emma's father, but I guess not..."

I sighed. I knew perfectly well why Nina didn't want to talk to me: it would be too painful. The reason she was being bullied was _because_ of me so it would too emotional to _talk_ to me. After only two and a half months, I already knew Nina like the back of my hand. I didn't know where she'd go off too.

"Did you notice that her grandmother's car isn't in the driveway?" I questioned, and Eddie nodded.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Ugh, Fabian, you're right, that woman _is_ a mystery. I don't know how you can talk to her every day without wanting to wring her neck. Alright, we'll have to look for clues as to where she went. Fabian, you look in the common room, I'll look in the kitchen and Mara will look in Nina's room. Now look!"

I set Emma down on the rug when I reached the common room. There wasn't much in that room; a fireplace, mantel, two couches and a china case. I checked under the couch cushions and brushed some dust off the mantel, but there was nothing there that shouldn't be. Sighing, I grabbed Emma from where she was resting on the sofa and onto my lap.

"So I know you can't speak that well..." I muttered, brushing a strand of Emma's light-brown hair out of her face to see her eyes; the eyes that were the same shade as mine. "Seeming as you're only two. But I know your birthday now! May 25th, 2010! You'll be three years old in...six months...so you're officially two and a half.

"God...I was a cunt back then...WAIT!" I exclaimed, realizing I had said a bad word. "Emma, don't you ever say that word. Okay? Ever. Don't ever use bad words or Daddy won't be happy with you." My eyes looked into another pair of the same color. "Comprende?"

Emma didn't say anything.

"Figures, you don't speak Spanish..." I laughed in spite of myself. "Did you know that Mommy is stupid? Yes. She is very stupid. She took off without any sort of word to any of us and I don't even know why she left you here...yeah...speaking of which, why did Nina leave you here?"

"Nina?" Emma questioned, her small eyes narrowing. I knew she couldn't ask a proper question just yet, but I knew what she was asking.

"Yeah, Mommy's real name is Nina, just like my real name is Fabian," I attempted to explain, even though there was a small part of me that knew Emma didn't fully understand. "But since you're only two you can't start calling Mommy by her real name until, you, like...ever. You can't call Mommy by her name ever."

Emma laughed, and that made me feel a little bit better about this whole situation; but at the same time I was scared shitless. I had never, not even once, been alone with my daughter before. What if I messed things up? I was already ranting and Emma, inside her little head, probably wouldn't even remember this day when she was a teenager. Hopefully, by the time Emma begins her teenage years, my fame will have died out and I'll be around Nina much more. Maybe I'd even propose to her one day and we could start a family as a married couple and we could tell our thirteen-year-old daughter and unborn son in 2023 the story of how I got Nina pregnant in the summer of 2009 and how I found her in 2012 and we started this weird-ass relationship that wasn't friends but wasn't a couple.

"Oh, man..." I muttered, mostly to myself, but I was positive that Emma could hear as well. "You're gonna grow up one day...you're gonna be this rebellious teenager that dates this biker dude, and I'm going to despise that kid but you'll see him in secret...Emma, I'm going to tell you this now. Don't make the mistake Mommy and I made when we were teenagers. Don't become a teen mother. No sex until you...pass away."

"Oh, yeah, that's a great time to have it," a voice said. For a horrifying second, I thought it was my two-year-old daughter, but then I realized that Eddie was standing in the doorway.

"Oh, Eddie, it's just you," I breathed, standing up. "I didn't find any clues. You?" Eddie shook his head sadly, but just at that moment, Mara came sprinting down the hall so fast I was surprised she didn't fall down and crack her skull open.

"OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD EDDIE LOOK AT THIS EDDIE LOOK AT THIS!" she exclaimed, holding out a piece of paper for Eddie to see. I walked over to where they stood, looking over their shoulder at the piece of paper.

It read:

_To Eddie, Mara, Fabian, or whoever else is reading this:  
Don't worry about me. Seriously, don't worry.  
I'm fine. I was just getting sick of all the laughing, pointing, and teasing at school; not to mention all the hate I was getting on Twitter. It was getting out of hand. It was all because I was in a photo with Fabian, which was absolutely ridiculous._  
_Anyway, I'm fine, so don't think I was kidnapped or killed or something. I'm with my Gran. I don't want to tell you where we are, because then you'll come looking for me, and I want to be alone for now, just me and my thoughts. I'll be gone for two weeks.  
Obviously I'm going to miss school, so Eddie, could you tell the teachers I'm going back to the United States to see a funeral for my great aunt? That's the lie we made up.  
And Mara, please don't freak out. I still have my phone with me so you can call and text me BUT DO NOT GIVE FABIAN MY NUMBER WHATEVER YOU DO OR I WILL COME BACK AND KICK YOUR ASSES.  
I left Emma, though. I couldn't take her with me, because then me and Gran would have to buy food for another person and we'd be carrying a toddler, so it would be hard. Fabian, I'm trusting you with your daughter. She's not just my child anymore, she's yours too. Maybe you and Emma could actually spend some time together.  
I need you to take Emma home with you for the next two weeks, though. I don't care who it is, but I'd recommend Eddie, since Emma has been around Eddie since she's been born. I'd say Mara too but we all know how that would end.  
M'kay. I'm sorry again. I'll be back November 15th. I promise. Love you.  
—Nina_

"Well, then..." Eddie muttered, flipping the sheet of paper over and over again in his hands. I was grateful that the note was completely different than the suicide note I saw in my dream, but I knew that Nina was just gone for two weeks. We'd been separated for two weeks before; I had to work on songs and stuff for new music, and I didn't have time to talk to her.

This time was different because instead of me being the one leaving, it was Nina. I didn't know how a sixteen-year-old teenager could have given birth to Emma and taken care of an infant at that age, but nineteen-year-old Fabian Rutter definitely could not.

"Eddie, Mara, I'm sorry, but I can't do this..." I said, slowly backing away to the door.

"Fabian!" Mara scolded, surprising me by coming up to me and slapping my arm. "How dare you? The mother of your child just left, and you're going to _back out_ on her? Emma _needs_ you!"

"I can't take care of her!" I protested, stopping in my tracks. "I...I've been with Emma before, but Nina was there with me. She knows my daughter better than I do. I don't know what food she likes, when she takes naps, when she eats, what her interests are...I don't know anything! I can't do this!"

"Exactly!" Eddie butted in, his American accent standing out between Mara and I, the two Brits. "I think Nina mentioned you in her note because she wants you to bond with Emma. Fabian, I've known Nina for four years now, and I've known Mother Nina for two and a half. She's lying when she said she couldn't take Emma; if she really wanted to, Emma would be with Nina right now, wherever she is. She wants you to bond with your daughter."

"I...I can't do this alone, I really can't," I pleaded, sitting down on one of the couches.

"You won't be alone," Eddie reasoned. "You have us. I mean, I know we haven't talked much, but I consider you a friend. And Mara will be here, for as long as she can be before she runs off to study for the test that's coming next month. What time is it?"

I checked my watch. "Um, eight in the morning. Why?"

"Because I want you to stay here with Emma while Mara and I go to the market to buy some food," he explained. Eddie saw I was about to butt in with something, so he interrupted yet again. "Yeah, I know, Emma will be staying with me overnight for the next two weeks, but we need some spare food here because I'm sure you'll be coming every day or so to check up, right? So, just stay here with your daughter and bond. Goodbye!"

I sighed as I watched the door close in my face. I considered talking to Nina about this; but from what I could tell, there wasn't a computer. But Nina had to have been IMing me some way; so I walked down the hall and into her bedroom.

I felt like I was disrespecting someone or something (maybe my dignity?) but I didn't care. Nina was long gone. She'd never know I was in her room, so I closed the door to shut myself in.

There wasn't much in her room; a small bed, a nightstand, a crib, presumably for Emma's small two-year-old form, and a desk filled with papers and notebooks. I didn't know how she could stand having such a tight space; I was partly claustrophobic because I couldn't handle small spaces very well. My bedroom was larger, with a bed twice the size of Nina's, and guitars in every corner. My laptop usually sat on one of my bookshelves, but at first glance, I couldn't see where her computer was.

It took me a minute, but eventually I thought to look under the bed; and there it was, sitting alone. I took it out, opened the screen and was faced with the dilemma of a password.

Then I remembered, after the concert I took Nina, Eddie, and Mara to, Nina and I stayed behind and played around on Twitter. She made her username be NMEM0725 — and, much to my amusement, NMEM0725 was her laptop password as well.

I did feel bad about invading her privacy, but I desperately wanted to see what Nina had hidden on her laptop. A few minutes' inspection proved that she hadn't opened her email since the 28th — and all her 'unread' messages turned to 'read'.

"Ugh," I muttered to myself, scrolling through all the messages her and I had sent since August.

I didn't know if I felt happy or sad when I scrolled all the way to the top, to see our first messages, on August 9th.

**Fabian: **Hello!  
**Nina: **Hi.  
**Fabian: **How are you?  
**Nina: **I'm fine. What about you?  
**Fabian: **Sisters are annoying. One of my sisters won't leave me alone. You'd think at sixteen she'd be more mature about who I'm talking to on the internet.  
**Nina: **One of?  
**Fabian: **Yeah. I have four sisters -_-  
**Nina: **Well, that sucks  
**Fabian**: Tell me about it. How's Emma?  
**Nina**: She's fine. I told her about you. She wants to meet you.  
**Fabian**: Can I? I've never seen my daughter before. Ever. But beware because I might freak out and pass out because I don't think the fact that I'm a dad has fully sunk in yet.  
**Nina**: Sure. Are you free today?  
**Fabian**: I'm free after six. Does six pm sound good?  
**Nina**: Great.

She had logged off after that, and Chloe had been the first sister to find out my secret. I hadn't met Emma at that point; if I had never asked to see her, Nina might have kept her away from me, and I might not be in this situation where I was alone with my daughter right now.

Speaking of which, I didn't know where she was right now. "Emma?" I called out, leaving the laptop on Nina's bed. "Emma! Where are you?" I left the room, which wasn't such a good idea; I didn't know the proper way around Nina's house yet.

"Oh Good Lord if I lost my daughter within the first hour of being together I am the worst father on the planet," I muttered to myself as I ran around her one-story house looking for my daughter. After a minute of looking, I found her searching the cabinets in the kitchen.

"Emma," I breathed, relieved, running over to pick her up. I tried to contain my happiness even though no one was there. "Oh, I'm so happy you're safe...not that you could have gone anywhere..."

"Daddy?" Emma murmured, smiling at me. I smiled back; it was weird to be called Daddy. For most of my life, I had been called Dork, Doofus, Stutter Rutter, etc, until I became famous and was called all the nice names you could think of. I'd never been called Daddy before; you could definitely say it was a weird experience.

"Yup," I said, releasing a small smile; I still had no idea how in the _hell_ I was supposed to stay alone with my daughter. "Your father's here...the famous celebrity...loved all around the world...yippee..."

I didn't think much of it when Emma didn't say anything else; she was only two years old, after all.

It was strange to think about; I knew that I had missed the first two years of my daughter's life, but (most likely) I'd be here for the rest of her life. I had missed her first words, her first steps, the first time she laughed; but I'd be here on her first day of school, her Prom, her Graduation, when Nina and I sent her off to college . . . which made me think: would we be a couple?

Or would we be like Ross and Rachel? Parents, but not a couple? I knew that Nina wanted to take things slow, but would we be going like we were for the rest of our lives? If it was, I'd probably be moving on to other people, other girls that I liked and was interested in.

"You cause me so much trouble," I told Emma, but she probably couldn't understand me fully. I sighed, looking out Nina's window; Mara and Eddie's car still wasn't in the driveway. I realized that since I didn't have Nina's phone number and her laptop was sitting right next to me, there was no way to contact her; so I ripped my phone out of my pocket and dialed Mick's number.

"Hey, mate," I greeted, scratching the back of my head when he picked up.

"Oh, God, Fabian, what's wrong?" he asked; Mick knew I was going over to Nina's house if she didn't answer my messages. "What happened? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, nothing's wrong," I answered casually, walking around Nina's room in a circle; there wasn't much to look at. Eventually, I sat down on her bed. "Nothing at all. I was just wondering if you wanted to come over to Nina's house."

I tried to make my voice sound desperate; I didn't know how long Eddie and Mara would take, but I did know that in that short time, I would mess something up with Emma and I'd be shunned from this house for the rest of my life.

Mick, apparently, got the hint, as he responded with: "Nothing's wrong, right?" I said _No_, and he continued. "Well, okay, then, as long as you're sure that nothing's wrong. I'll be there in a minute."

"Okay," I nodded. "Thanks." Mick hung up, leaving me alone with Emma again. She pushed her two-year-old self up on to the bed with me; I probably would have helped her if I had been thinking straight.

For the past three years, I had been too obsessed with my fame and getting people to like me and my music; I hadn't really taken a "Home Economics" class in forever. I didn't know how babies acted. If I had been in contact with Nina when she was pregnant, I probably would have been an ass and backed out on her. If I did that, _I_ probably would have left town; leaving Nina was so much worse than not knowing I had a daughter for two and a half years.

I sighed, turning my body to face my small daughter. "Oh, man," I muttered to myself, picking her up and setting her in my lap. "So, Emma . . ." I paused, not knowing how to start a conversation with a toddler. "Do you know where Mommy is or where she went?"

After pausing for a moment, she faced me, and I saw her eyes; she had the same exact color as me. Shaking that thought of my head, I saw Emma shake her head _no_.

"Well, of course you wouldn't," I muttered, mostly to myself. "You're two. I don't think Nina would really tell you where she was going. You might repeat it back to me. Man, Nina is a pain in the ass —"

Then I realized that I had cursed in front of my two-year-old daughter, my eyes grew to the size of tennis balls. "No, no, no!" I commanded her, but I didn't really think Emma had picked up on that. "Do not say ass. Oh, God, I said it again! Okay, Emma, you better not say any bad words in your lifetime, or I am going to kick your ass — OH MY GOD I'M HORRIBLE!"

Through my hands, I saw Emma giggle and say, "Nina?"

"What?" I murmured, slowly picking my head out of my hands in shame.

"Who Nina?" Emma asked again, and that's when I realized she was asking who Nina was.

"Oh," I quickly said, regaining my composure. "Oh, um . . . Nina's . . . um . . ." Then I realized I shouldn't lie to a two-year-old, especially my own _daughter_, so I told her, "Nina's your mother. Nina is Mommy's real name, just like Daddy's real name is Fabian."

"Fabian?" Emma asked, and I nodded.

"Yup, my real name is Fabian! I think I was named after my grandfather...or my great-grandfather...whatever. I don't really like my name. It means _Bean Grower _. . . I mean, if you're going to name me_ Bean Grower, _might as well name me_ Jack . . ."_

"Fabian!" Emma exclaimed.

"No, no, no," I waggled my finger in Emma's face. "Daddy's real name _is_ Fabian, but that's not you're going to call him. Daddy's your father, so you're going to call him Daddy . . . or Dad . . . or Father . . . but I think I'd prefer Daddy, until you're, like, thirteen in 2023 and you're like, 'UGH DAD I REALLY WANT THESE SHOES' with your American accent while you video chat me in America. Okay, now I'm rambling. I'm sorry. Daddy does that a lot."

After that, silence issued between me and Emma. I didn't think anything out of it; I didn't really believe I could create an awkward silence between me and my daughter this early in her life; Emma was probably just thinking weird things in that small head of hers, like what the color of the ceiling was or how many tiles were on the floor.

"Fabian?" Emma addressed me, and I groaned.

"Oh, Nina's going to kill me," I muttered, but immediately corrected myself: "No. No. _Mommy_ is going to kill me. Yeah, _Mommy_ is going to kill me. Emma, sweetie, we're going to set the record straight."

Emma remained silent, and I felt a stupid surge of being in control for once; but for my first time and it being in front of a toddler, I felt kind of lame. I took a deep breath and continued: "Okay. I want you to call me Daddy or Dad, because I _am_ your father. No sex until you . . . pass away."

Emma giggled uncomprehendingly; I continued with: "Emma, honey, don't be stupid like Nina — I mean Mommy — and have sex when you're sixteen with a potential famous celebrity, because then you'd end up with . . . this. I bet you don't even know I denied you." I took a deep breath. "Wow, I am a horrible father. I denied my own daughter!"

"Daddy?" Emma asked, and with a surge of happiness, I smiled at her. "Potty!" she said, excitement leaping through her tone, as she took off out of my lap and into the bathroom.

After the realization hit me that she was only two years old and would need help going to the bathroom, I said, "Oh my God."

**v v v**

**A/N: Okay, um, I'll_ try_ to write chapter 17 by next week, but no promises. **

**I can't wait to write the next couple of chapters, because: Team Fabian meets Team Nina, there's a twist you'd never expect, and thing heat up with _another_ photo of Fabian and Emma. We're only 6 chapters away from my favorite one, so. **

**Alright, feel free to do whatever you want, comment telling me how you liked it or how much you'd want to murder me if I missed another two weeks...**


	17. The Playdate

**A/N: Big thanks to wolfienjhoanfdwar, and alwaysanubis(Guest). They helped me find free, working links for HoA season 1; I hadn't seen it in a year and a half, so it was nice to watch it again. While on the search to look for another working link, I found one; if anyone's interested in a working, free link to season 1, with every episode, just so say and I'll PM you the link.**

**Well, I was waiting for the messages to come, but none ever did. Seriously, guys, I'm not gonna chop your balls off if you ask me "How much of chapter [insert number here] do you have written?" You don't even have to do it on anon. I want to apologize and hug you. Besides, it might make me concentrate on the chapter more than the others I'm currently writing...**

**The ending was kind of rough, because I rushed it a bit, not to mention this is a big filler chapter . . . but I'm currently at work at chapter 18, which has much more action than this one. Everything that I promised in the last chapter is going to come true, so make sure your seatbelts are buckled tightly, because this won't be a smooth ride from here on out. **

**I do hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day!  
~Lia**

* * *

**Fabian**  
**Chapter 17: "The Playdate"**

I was still helping Emma in the bathroom when I heard the front door open and close. I was still awkward enough, crouched on the floor next to Emma's body on the toilet, but when she jumped from the sound of the slamming door, I attempted to comfort her.

"It's okay, Emma," I grinned, hoping that a smile would calm her down. She mumbled incomprehensible words as the footsteps downstairs continued.

I was actually thinking it might have been a robber when a familiar voice exclaimed, "Mate? Where are you?"

Mick. I sighed with relief as I yelled back, "In the bathroom down the hall!"

The footsteps grew louder as Mick walked toward the bathroom. "Why are you in the bathroom?" he asked, opening the door to see Emma on the toilet. "Oh," he said suddenly, his face priceless, turning around and covering his eyes.

"Yeah," I chuckled, helping Emma off the toilet and slipping her pants back on. "I didn't know Nina was potty training her, either. I had to call Eddie hyperventilating, and all he did was laugh his ass off. I've been in this bathroom for a good twenty minutes, but I don't think Emma _really_ has to go, do you, sweetie?"

All she did was giggle, but at the sound of her laugh, Mick smiled. "So, this is Emma?" he asked, and I nodded. "Wow . . . I've never seen your daughter before. It's strange, kind of . . . knowing that my best mate has a child . . ."

"Who this?" Emma asked, pointing up at Mick.

"Well, kid, " Mick began, leaning down to pick Emma up without my permission — but it didn't matter, because I would've let him pick her up anyway — "I'm not _really_ your uncle, but since Daddy doesn't have any brothers, I'm as good as he's ever gonna get. So I guess you can call me Uncle Mick, if you want."

I pushed myself off of the tiled floor and rubbed the sweat off on my jeans. I grinned as I saw Emma pat his blonde hair, bringing the left and right side together; Mick was silent, watching her play with his hair; I could tell that he wasn't sure what to do. Mick was just as clueless with children as I was.

Then Emma started crying. As Mick's eyes grew to the size of tennis balls, I swore my eyes grew twice that size. I'd been around Nina and Emma for almost three months now, but never once had I seen either of them cry. I knew Nina was a strong person; she could take teasing and bullying well, but I never stopped to think that Emma was still a toddler.

"Take your kid!" Mick exclaimed, shoving Emma back into my arms, screaming her lungs out. I didn't know why she just suddenly started crying like that; had Mick done something to scare her? Did Emma know, subconsciously, that she hadn't seen Mick before today?

"I don't want her!" I yelled, trying to give Emma back to Mick, which, looking back on, was a shitty move. There I was, trying to give my daughter to someone else. I was her father; maybe I had to calm her down herself. "She's never cried like this before! I have no idea what to do!"

Emma's screams were echoing around the bathroom; I just hoped that no one else in Nina's neighborhood could hear us. "Oh, come on, Emma!" I yelled, my daughter in my arms. "Calm down! Please! Daddy wants you to calm down!"

"Yes, calm her down, please!" Mick had to yell to be heard over Emma's wails. "Ugh, I can't take it anymore!" He started to walk out of the bathroom, but I grabbed the collar of his shirt to stop him.

"Don't leave me!" I begged, bouncing Emma up and down in my arms, but she didn't stop screaming. "I can't do this alone! I've never been alone with a crying toddler before! _I can't do this_!"

"Uggggh!" Mick complained, but he didn't leave. He covered his ears with his hands, as if that would help him block out Emma's temper-tantrum.

"Oh, Emma," I pleaded over her wails. "Please, please stop crying . . . I don't know what set you off . . . Oh my God Mick how can we calm her down?" I asked, continually bouncing Emma up and down; but when she didn't stop crying, I stopped bouncing her, thinking that maybe the bouncing was annoying her; but when I stopped, she continued to cry.

"Um . . ." Mick thought for a moment, turning around in circles. "Okay, um, we can . . . we can look it up!"

"Good idea!" I agreed, pointing to his phone in his pocket.

Only two seconds later, he whipped it up into his hands and muttered as he typed: "Tips . . . to . . . stop . . . a . . . screaming . . . toddler . . . temper . . . tantrum . . ." Then we waited for a few seconds while it loaded — the longest seven seconds of my life — then Mick exclaimed, "Bingo!" and I knew had hit gold.

"Okay, so . . ." he yelled over Emma's wails, "It says here to find something more enticing than screaming, something that distracts them . . . what the hell distracts Emma, then?!" he yelled, acting like he wanted to throw his phone against the wall and scream into a pillow so he wouldn't have to hear Emma cry.

He took a deep breath and turned back to his phone. "'Some common distraction items are toys, food, television, or possibly an activity such as coloring'. Okay, so let's try some of those!"

"I don't know what Emma eats!" I wailed along with my daughter. Mick looked about ready to throw himself out the window at this point.

_"Let's just look in the counter_!" Mick yelled, ushering me into Nina's kitchen. I held Emma in my arms as I followed him into the kitchen, watching him look through food for something to give to Emma. She calmed down a little as we walked into the kitchen, so I sat her in one of the stools as Mick and I rummaged through the cabinets.

"Does she eat cucumbers?!" Mick wondered, grabbing the vegetable out of the fridge. I shrugged as I looked under the sink, desperate for something, but Mick brought the cucumbers over to a cutting board and cut them into small pieces; when he approached Emma, he threw a slice of cucumber on her lap.

She looked at it for a second, and stopped crying — the best four seconds of my day — but soon enough, she threw the cucumber onto the ground and continued to wail.

"Emma!" I scolded, but I knew she wouldn't take my displeasure to heart. She was two years old. Mick looked at me, his big blue eyes pleading. "What's next?" I wondered, walking next to him, ready to scream and wake all the neighbors.

I didn't know why Emma was crying so much. I knew two-year-olds got frustrated easily because they took in a lot but couldn't express themselves as easily as older people could, but why would she throw a cucumber onto the ground?

"Um . . ." Mick's frantic expression changed when he remembered, "Toys! Toys! Look for toys around the house!"

I nodded, and two seconds later, I returned with a toy car in my hand. "Here!" I cheered, running over to Emma, who was sitting on the counter tops, and placed the toy car next to her.

Nina had told me once that Emma liked a mix of things; toy cars, dolls, and even the television remote (which, she told me, Emma liked to break). Fresh tears were streaming down her face when she noticed the car next to her, immediately stopped crying, moved her body around so she was lying on the granite counter, and started moving the car back and forth, sucking her thumb as she rolled it around.

Mick and I both sighed with relief as we crashed onto the couches in the common room. "Oh, mate," Mick breathed, not bothering to look at me as he stared up at the ceiling. "I didn't know that it was going to be this hard."

"Neither did I," I admitted, sitting up to look around the corner; Emma was still lying on the counter, but as Mick was lying back against the couch, like he usually did, I walked into the kitchen and grabbed Emma around the waist. I didn't want her to fall off the counter and crack her skull open.

I brought the toy car along with me as I sat Emma down on the carpeted floor in the common room with me and Mick.

"Where is everybody else?" Mick wondered, after a few moments' silence.

"Well, Nina's out of town, Eddie and Mara — they're Nina's friends —are out getting food, and you're here with me. Jerome, Alfie, and Amber are . . . wherever."

"Yeah, about that . . ." Mick scratched the back of his head guiltily. When I raised my eyebrows, he explained, "Well, I didn't know what had happened; you never invited me over Nina's house before, in the three months you two have been together, so I kind of panicked, and, well . . ."

Instead of saying anything else, he opened the door and waved to his car in front of the house. When two or three doors open, I groaned and leaned against the back of the couch again; I knew what Mick had done. He had brought Jerome, Alfie, and Amber along with him.

"Wonderful," I muttered, but I was secretly grateful; even with Mick, Eddie, and Mara helping me out, I'd still be scared shitless. I watched as the three of them climbed the steps to the door, and as Mick let them in, I "bro-hugged" Jerome and Alfie, as Eddie put it, and Amber attacked me in one of her infamous hugs.

But before I could say anything to Amber, she noticed the toddler lying on the ground. "Oh, Fabian!" she screeched, running over to Emma and picking her up. "Oh . . . she's so beautiful . . ." she grinning at me before turning her attention back to the toddler.

That's when I knew I wouldn't be spending any time alone with Emma. Amber would be glued to my shoulder the whole time. She had a reputation for liking "girly" things, like dresses and shoes and makeup, but Amber always had a soft spot the little ones. She'd never want to leave my child's side.

"What's her name?" Amber wondered, softly stroking the toddler's fingers.

"Emma," I answered, and Amber squealed. I leaned over to Mick and whispered, "Tell me why you brought Amber along," and Mick shrugged.

"Oh, that's such a pretty name!" Amber jumped around, and Emma laughed along with her; it seemed that Emma liked being bounced up and down. "So, where's Nina? I've wanted to get in touch with her lately, but she never answered my emails..." Amber shrugged.

"Nina's out of town," I answered. "She was getting a lot of hate on websites and such, so she left with her grandmother. I have no idea where she went, but she said she'll back on November 15th, so she wants me to check in on Emma every day, even though she's not staying with me."

"Then where is she staying?" Amber wondered, inspecting Emma's feature. As the front door opened again, Amber yelled, "Oh! Fabian! She has the same exact eye color as you do!"

Eddie and Mara walked in with handfuls full of grocery bags; Mara grinned at me before placing her bags on the counter along with Eddie's. Eddie, looking around for Emma, noticed her in Amber's arms; without a word, he approached her and took her into the kitchen.

"Aw," Amber pouted. When Eddie beckoned me into the kitchen with Mara and him, so I left my friends and approached them. "What's wrong?" I asked, leaning my shoulder on the counter top. Eddie placed Emma on the counter next to me

"Who are those people?" Eddie wondered, pointing into the common room, where Jerome, Alfie, Amber, and Mick stood.

"They're my friends," I answered simply. "When you and Mara were out getting food — and by the way, I smell biscuits, so I'm going to at all of them no exceptions — I ringed Mick, because I honestly thought I couldn't do this alone. Turns out, he invited my other friends . . . so now there's eight people in this house. I hope that's okay!"

Mara was too busy staring into the common room — I thought Jerome had spared a glance at her — but Eddie had his arms crossed in protest. "Fabian, this isn't a good idea. Emma's never been around those people before."

"She's been around Mick," I stated hopefully. "Maybe that'll help?"

"Did she start crying?" Eddie asked, as if that was the first question he thought of every time.

"Yeah, why?" I asked, and Eddie and Mara shared a knowing look with each other. It still irked me that Eddie and Mara, who weren't related to Emma in any way, knew more about her than I did. "What's wrong?"

"Fabian, do you know why they call it the Terrible Two's?" Eddie inquired, raising his eyebrows. When I shrugged, he continued, "It's because they get frustrated easily. Two-year-old's take in a lot; they understand more, but they can't express themselves, so they cry and scream a lot. They get frustrated easily. Emma probably couldn't understand who Mick was, so she started crying."

I blinked, leading to Eddie chuckling. "Wow. For a father, you know nothing about parenting."

"I've been a father for three months!" I protested, throwing my hands up in the air. "I know nothing worth for shit! I don't even know _anything_ about my own _daughter_!"

I sighed. For the past couple of months, I had beaten myself up for it, even though I wasn't in Nina's life when she was pregnant. I honestly didn't think I had gotten her pregnant, so I never made an effort to find her. Meanwhile, on Nina's side, my baby was growing inside her.

She had given birth to my baby, taken care of my baby, and raised my baby, all without me. I understood her reasons, and I respected them, but sometimes Nina could annoy me to no lengths.

She was obsessed with the idea of a fan kidnapping and killing me, and even though I knew she was just being paranoid, I also knew she was afraid to lose me. I had only known Nina for three months, and I already knew her like the back of my hand. I knew that her favorite color was green. I knew that she was originally from Florida. I knew that she always drank 2% milk and always wore tennis shoes and never wore her hair back in a ponytail. I knew that she wore a green ring on her finger because it was her mother's, I knew that she had a demon cat named Luna who was never in the house, and I knew that she always held on to the railings when she was climbing up steps.

I knew what_ Nina_ was like. I just didn't know what _Emma_ was like.

"Well, anyway," Eddie cleared his throat, searching through his bags again. "While Mara and I were out, we stopped by a clothes store, because Mara needed boots for the winter; while we were there, we found this —" He pulled two shirts out of the bag, plain white t-shirts that both had writing on them. By closer inspection, I saw that they were both two different sizes. The bigger one read **My baby's the shit **and the smaller one said **I'm the shit**.

"Oh," I commented, trying not to laugh. I could Eddie holding back a chuckle as well, but Mara, over in the corner, rolled her eyes at us. "I'm guessing you want me to wear this thing?"

Eddie nodded, finally releasing his laugh and leaning on the kitchen counter for support. "Yup. I have to send a picture to Nina. And no, I will _not_ give you her number. She will apparently kick my ass if I give it to you within these two weeks."

I sighed, looking back inside the common room, where Mick, Jerome, and Amber were standing. "Fine. I'll take the picture with you, but you have to meet my friends first. They'll be with me during all this, anyway."

**v v v**

"Okay, so, introductions!" I announced, clapping my hands as I led Eddie and Mara into the common room, where the others were. I held Emma's small hand as I sat down on the loveseat with my daughter. "Neither of you know each other, so I thought that you could _get_ to know each other! Sound good?"

Noise issued from the group, but I didn't really catch any complaints or groans. "Who wants to go first?"

Jerome raised his hand. I nodded in his direction, and he started before I could say so. "Jerome Clarke. British, 20 years old, loves to scam and prank. So watch out, you may be next." He pointed to Alfie, signaling him to go next.

"My name is Alfie Lewis; I'm British, 19 years old, and Jerome and I are best friends and I fully believe that aliens exist."

After that, silence ensued. Nothing Jerome or Alfie said was news to me; I had known those two as a duo for a long time, and I'd had my fair share of pranks and scams. Alfie wasn't sure who to point to next; so I nodded to Mick and he took off.

"The name's Mick Campbell. I'm 19, British, and all into sports and all that good stuff." Mick pointed to Amber, which wasn't such a good idea; she took off, content that she finally got her chance to speak.

"Morning! I'm Amber Millington! I'm 18 and British and loooove to shop and gossip! Fabian calls me his mini-manager, isn't that sweet? Fabian's one of my very best friends and I don't know where I'd be without him. Then again, I don't know where _he'd_ be without _me_! I don't even think he'd be able to raise his daughter right! Then again this is the first time I've met little Emma but _by god_ is she cute I could just pinch those cheeks all day and I'd never get tired of looking at her face. Fabian—" she addressed me now; "—you did well, that one night you spent with Nina. I mean, look at this cute little thing you produced! How on Earth could someone produce someone this cute? I think that Nina must be a witch or something but no human could ever, and I mean ever, make someone this adorable. Other than me, of course—"

"Okay!" I interrupted, before Amber could go any further. If I let her continue, she just might go into the subject of what happened during my night with Nina; and that was something I didn't really think about.

I didn't know why I didn't want to talk about it; it wasn't as if it was a secret or anything. I thought that I was kind of embarrassed; when I learned that I had gotten Nina pregnant back in August, I didn't want to think back on that night; after Nina left my apartment without a word, I didn't think I had gotten her pregnant. I practically knew nothing about girls at the time; when I was 16, I still cringed whenever my sisters said they were on their period.

No one really knew about the night we met, other than Nina and I; but I didn't think one of us would be spilling the beans anytime soon, no matter how curious Amber was. After Amber finished her story, she pointed to Eddie; I didn't know what she thought of him, considering she didn't know him.

"Well, my name's Eddie. I'm still 16, but I'll be 17 in two weeks. I'm originally from America, but my mom died so I was sent here to bond with my dad. Nothing really interesting about me."

"Oh, please!" Mara scoffed. "If you weren't interesting, I wouldn't have had a crush on you when I was 13. Sure, I may not be interesting, but I wouldn't have had a crush on you if you weren't interesting!"

Snickers from Jerome and Alfie; I stopped Amber from squealing in delight as a new couple bloomed by pointing to Mara, who was blushing feverishly, to begin her introduction. I was interested in what Nina's friends were going to say; I practically knew nothing about them, other than the fact theat they were Nina's friends.

"I'm Mara Jaffray. I'm about to turn 18 in December, so I'm the oldest out of the three of us. I'm the brightest witch of my age, and I'll always be smarter than Eddie and Nina. So there."

"Seeming as the toddler next to you can't speak in full sentences," Eddie pointed to Emma, sitting next to me on the loveseat, her tiny two-year-old feet dangling off the couch, barely even touching the ground, "I'll do her introduction for her.

"Her name is Emma Grace Martin, daughter of Nina Martin and famous celebrity Fabian Rutter. She's two, born on May 25th, 2010. She's really carefree and doesn't listen most of the time when Uncle Eddie tells her to do something, but she's really into horses. And she's still potty-training so just beware of that."

"Horses, eh?" I questioned, turning to my daughter. "I never knew that about you."

But she didn't respond; all she did was kick her feet, probably thinking about how high she was off the ground at that moment. In only a few years, her feet would touch the ground; I doubt that Emma would go by her full name, or refer to Eddie as "Uncle", or even be into horses. When she was Nina's age, she'd be completely different from how she is right now.

Thinking about the future made me uneasy; in a measly eleven years, Emma would be a teenager. She might not like horses anymore and she might not refer to me as "Daddy" anymore. And no one knew where my fame would take me; in eleven years, my fame might still be there when I'm 30, or it might die out. I kind of hoped it would die out, so that when Emma's in her teens and having a hard time in high school, I'd be there for her. When someone called her a slut because she had a teen mother, or if a boy called her ugly, I'd drive up to that school and punch the life right out of them.

I didn't like change. I didn't want anything to change. Because if things changed, things will be different. I'd mess it up. I'd already messed up my relationship with Nina, and I'd only known her for three months. I'd mess it up even more if I told her I was in love with her . . .

"Oh, Fabian!" Amber groaned, getting up from the couch where she was sitting; the common room was small, only consisting of one couch and a loveseat; Emma and I occupied the loveseat and Eddie and Mara sat on the couch; Jerome, Alfie, and Mick were on the floor, while Amber took the spare seat next to Eddie and Mara on the couch.

"Can I pretty please with a cherry on top play with Emma again?" she begged, getting down on her knees and looking up at me with puppy dog eyes. "She's so cute, and I'm basically her aunt! Even though she has four aunts already..."

I shot her a death glare, and Amber giggled. Then, without my consent, she snatched Emma up off the couch and ran into the kitchen with her, laughing the whole way there.

"Um . . ." I muttered, sitting up quickly, looking around at all the chuckling people in the common room. "Mick . . . would you come with me? I don't think I can handle my child _and_ Amber in the same room alone..."

Chuckling again, Mick stood up, biding a goodbye to Eddie and Mara. "Sure thing, mate." Then we walked into the common room, leaving Eddie and Mara with Alfie and Jerome, but I didn't think too much of it; Mara looked like she was sure getting cozy with Jerome.

When we arrived at the kitchen, Emma was lying on the floor, and Amber was looking in the cabinets for something. I rolled my eyes, leaned down to pick my daughter up, and kept her in my arms; Mick shot me an approving glance.

"What?" I asked, scooching Emma up a little bit higher so she wouldn't slide out of my grasp.

"Oh, nothing," he muttered, looking completely happy with himself. He pointed to Amber, who was still searching the cabinets, making a wreck of the place; eventually, before I could go over there and help her, brought out a pan of vegetables and laid them all on the counter: broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and pretty much everything else.

"Okay," Amber breathed, presenting the veggies on the counter. "What do you think Emma likes to eat?" she asked, pointing to the girl in my arms, who was no sucking on her thumb. I wondered if Nina ever gave her a pacifier.

"Dunno," I shrugged. I was about to set Emma down on the counter, like I'd been doing for the past hour or two, but before I could do that, a fly landed on her shoulder, and she exploded like she did with Mick.

"Oh, no, not again!" Mick yelled, covering his ears and screaming as he ran back into the living room. The sounds of Emma's wails drifted into the common room, where Eddie, Mara, Alfie, and Jerome's heads were now turned. Eddie groaned, rolled his eyes, and raised his eyebrows, silently telling me what to do.

"Fabian, what do we do?!" Amber wailed, along with Emma, who was sitting in my arms, once again crying her eyes out. "I . . . I didn't mean to . . . I'm so sorry!"

And that smug little carrot was sitting on the counter, just waiting to be creamed with the help of Jerome Clarke, who was about to get his first kiss in twenty years.

* * *

**A/N: I AM SO SORRY FOR THAT ENDING. These chapters are just getting worse by the minute...but I'm very inspired to get on to the next chapter, so don't worry. There's [most definitely] an update next week, because even though school is starting soon, I really want to just get most of my writing over with.  
_Harrass me on Tumblr and on here if you want an update. I am being 101% serious.  
_I do hope you enjoyed this horrific chapter, and I hope you have a sparkling day!  
~Lia**


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